Parents

There seems to be some confusion over proper parenting behavior.

Parents don't need an accountant to keep track of the money they spend on their kids, just so it can be held over their heads later in life.

Parents don't display their grievances with their childrens' decisions in public.  And they sure as hell don't demean them in front of anyone else.

Parents don't try to use grandchildren as a threat or bargaining chip in petty arguments.

Parents make sure their kids get hugs and kisses and "I love you" so much that it's embarrassing.

Parents don’t put baby in a corner.



I saw an article on Cracked the other day talking about things that "good" parents do to screw up their children.  It was a list of the things that are "best practices" for parenthood but often end up having unintended consequences.  Of course, this all assumes that someone else knows how to parent your kid better than you do.  Granted, sometimes this is quite true. *cough* Dina Lohan *cough*

But many people are so concerned with having the right plan and saying the right things to ensure our little bundles of innocence blossom into functional adults.

The following is taken from an email exchange my wife and I had after reading the Cracked article.  She jokingly asked if we should revamp our entire parenting strategy.

Or we could just be open and honest with our child instead of trying to trick him into being a productive human being.  That's the biggest problem.  Everyone wants a battle plan for raising their child.  That's stupid.

If every adult is a different person then every child is a different person.  If you tried to make a cookie cutter guide to please every person on the planet it would be a horrendous failure.  So why do people try to do it with children?  Time-outs work for some kids.  Guilt works for some kids.  Spankings work for others.  There's no "right" way to raise a child.  And parents need to tailor their parenting to their own fucking child.  

I'm not saying to let them get away with anything they want.  But have rules and stick to them.  And if you find out that your own rules are bullshit, then change them.  Admitting to your child that you made a mistake does NOT make you weaker in their eyes.  It makes you more human.  And there's no better way to raise a child then to have them realize everyone's human and everyone makes mistakes.

I'm not saying parents are 100% responsible for how their kids turn out.  But I'm sure as hell saying they're 98% responsible.  


Don't wait until your kid is seventeen and going to the prom to talk to them about sex.  
Don't wait until your kid is seventeen to talk to them about drinking/smoking/drugs.
Don't train your kid to be a good little sheep and accept everything that authority figures say verbatim. 


I don't have all the answers.  Hell, I don't have most of the answers.  But I've seen quite a bit of parenting, whether it be myself or others in my life.  And I sure as hell know what NOT to do.  


Don't be scared that you don't know how to do everything right.  


You will screw up.  Your kids will screw up.  Learn from those mistakes TOGETHER.  I honestly think that's the only way to avoid being an 18 year-long incubator and becoming a functional parent. 






If you would like to buy a copy of my parenting book I would be glad to print out this post, staple it several times (no less than two, no more than four), and sell it to you for $17.99.  

Let's Get Srsly Srs

The other day I was talking to my wife about the phantom tax cut that the Obama administration passed earlier this year.  This article from the NY Times talks about how most people didn't even realize it happened.

I made a comment to my wife that I was concerned about my annual tax liability staying the same when the amount allotted from each paycheck was less.  She asked for a little clarification of what I meant and this spewed forth:

The taxes being taken out of my paychecks are very similar to our property tax being rolled into the escrow with our mortgage.  We pay a little extra every month so it builds up to what we have to pay for yearly taxes.  Then when the taxes come due, the money is already there and we don't have to pay any more.  

The amount of taxes I owe at the end of the year is based on how much I make.  I have a certain amount taken out of each paycheck to go toward that amount.  This is basically how the tax refund works.  I give the government money from every paycheck to count toward my yearly tax liability.  At the end of the year if I've given them too much then they give me back the difference.  But, if I've given them too little then I have to pay the difference. 

Here's where my question comes in.  If the amount of taxes that I owe stays the same, and my exemptions/the government is taking less from each of my paychecks, then I will have a smaller refund or I might owe at the end of the year....unless they have made some adjustment to my overall tax liability.  I assume they would be blowing themselves on national television if they had done that so I don't thinks it's happened.  

This could mean that millions of Americans who have been claiming the same exemptions on their paychecks for years could have a dramatically different amount that they owe the government this year. 

It's just like the original version of the new homebuyer's credit.  Under the version that we [my wife and I] took advantage of, the credit is a one time gift from Uncle Sam thanking us for stimulating the economy by buying a house.  Under the version from the year before (the way I understand), it was basically an $8000 loan.  They were getting an $8000 advance on their next years' taxes.  Meaning, those people have to pay that $8000 back the next year (that year being this one).  

SO!!!  When tax time comes around next year we will have millions of homeowners (whether they're victims of a foreclosure or not) who now owe $8000 more than usual due to the original homebuyer's credit/loan.  AND you combine that with every working American not having as much money built up toward their yearly tax liability because of the hidden tax break.  This could make for a very bad combination.  Throw in outside factors such as the terrible housing market, the equally terrible job market, the ever-declining value of the dollar, and the "war" in Afghanistan, and you get a potential catastrophe.  

Okay...I got a little dramatic.  But you can see where I'm going.  Tax credits are great as long as they're real.  Don't have them be a hidden loan or something that could blindside us at tax time.

Sorry to get into something so serious.  Election season has me steering away from normal Apollo 13 references and more toward political issues.

Heroes and Villains

Indulging my paradox thinking last week brought me to the realization that nearly everything around us is a paradox.  

Plastic

It makes horrible knock-off toys from Hong Kong and it saves lives through pacemakers.

Porcelain

Craptacular babies with angel's wings for which your grandmother pays $400 and also toilets.

Paper

Gives you access to knowledge of the ages and gives your bird something to poo on.

Human Beings

Humans bring joy, pain, camaraderie, alienation, euphoria, torment, life, death.  We are cruel and forgiving simultaneously.  We want people to accept our differences and ostracize others'.

As terrible as it sounds, this type of thinking made me feel better.  There will always be some walking douche thriving on chaos and mayhem.  But knowing that life itself is a paradox means that there will always be someone who is the antithesis of said douche who rides in and fights back.

(Caution - Nerd Overload Approaching...)

Every Sauraman has a Gandalf.  Every Emperor has a Luke.  Every Alien has a Ripley. Every Biff has a Marty McFly.  Every Cobra Kai has a Ralph Macchio.  Every Kahn has a Kirk.  

They don't always look like wizards or Jedi but the heroes will fight oppression and hatred until the very end.


I don't think most people, myself included, are cut out to be traditional heroes.  We have our moments when we pull children from burning buildings and lift cars off of loved ones.  But for most of us our heroism peaks at finding the last blue ultra-mega-robot-man-thing in town for our kid's Christmas present.  Or volunteering our time/money to help less fortunate people in our town.

But looking at life as an amalgamation of paradoxes, heroes, and schmoes means that simple actions by regular people are some of the most important and heroic acts possible.

Every Frodo has a Sam.  Every Han has a Chewy.  Every Indiana has a Short Round. Every Kirk has a Spock.  Every Arthur Dent has a Marvin.

While the heroes are saving the day, the regular Joes find ways to make just as much impact on the world around them.  And without those sidekicks and regular guys, the world wouldn't be worth saving anyway.

(Also, if you understood all of the nerdy references above then we seriously need to be friends, like, now.)

The Paradox Parade

Do you ever have a day when you want to move to rural Montana and abandon anything that involves a battery or a power cord?

Do you follow up the next morning by blogging about a new gadget that's auto-posted to your Twitter feed and then blasted from there to your Facebook page?

I do.  All the time.  And I've probably said these same things a thousand times.

Welcome to my Paradox Parade.

I'm the guy who wants to have tons of friends but never wants to go out in public.  I'm the guy who can get up on a stage and scream and act like an idiot but I feel uncomfortable initiating a conversation.  Better yet, put me on stage in front of 150+ strangers and I eat it up.  I bathe in the attention and adoration of the audience and want everyone's eyes on me.  But put me on stage in front of 15 people and I become an awkward kid covering a Coldplay song during lunch break in the band room, too afraid to actually sing.  (high school...good times?)

So I can't blame people for not understanding me because oftentimes I thoroughly confuse myself.  I go through fazes of obsession.  My current obsession, to my wife's chagrin, is baseball.  A few weeks ago it was the Deadliest Catch.  Before that is was video games then comic books (love them, but too expensive for right now), computers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (What?!  I missed it when it originally aired), LOTRO (which has since been bastardized as a free-to-play shell of it's former greatness), etc.

My tastes change.  And when they do they're sudden and all-encompassing.

Looking back, I guess I've always been this way.

(The first time I can remember noticing this trait was several years ago after my mother and I got a large TV and HD movie stations (not paid cable such as HBO, we weren't THAT fancy).  I was flipping through the channels and found a movie I'd never seen before, Stargate.  I watched it, loved it, and wanted to know more about it.  The Internet heeded my query and told me there was a spin-off series staring TV's Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver).  In my mind it was obvious that I should immediately go purchase all eight seasons on DVD and watch them within a matter of weeks.  You know, normal everyday obsession style.)

My point:  Everyone is a paradox.  It's the interactions between the contradicting emotions and longings that make up our personalities.  And when those desires change and mature our persona changes.

Embrace who you are.  Own who you are.  If one day you find that you don't like who you've become, make a change.  You're the only one who can.

[Queue rainbow and Tony Robbins smile]

A Midsummer Night's Malaise

Work is wearing on me.  But it's not the "work" that is driving me insane.  It's the people.

I'm not sure how some of these people dress themselves.  Let me run through some fun facts for you:

-Not being able to type quickly is a computer issue.  Not being able to find the letters at all is not.
-Not understanding where to type your name is a computer issue.  Not knowing how to spell your name is not.
-Not understanding how to change from lowercase letters to capital letters is a computer issue.  Not understanding the difference between them when they're printed on a page in front of you is not.

Also, when did "auwruh" become a letter?  Apparently it comes right after Q now.

Don't get me wrong, I love the physical part of my job.  I love fixing computers and playing with new hardware/software.  I get geeked when a new piece of software comes out and it's my job to play with it and see how it works.  And I love working with an overwhelming majority of the people at my company.  But some of the people that I have to deal with make me question whether it's worth it.

Notice how I said some of the people.  I don't dislike people who know nothing about computers.  In fact, these are my favorites.  Give me a 50 year old man who's never touched a computer any day over a guy who skims Lifehacker once a month and thinks he knows everything about computers.  I have issues with the people who either refuse to listen or are entrenched in what I call Willful Ignorance.  And this adherence to their ignorance has nothing to do directly with computers.

I get it though.  Nobody wants to call me.  I'm PC Support.  I'm the Helpdesk.  No one calls these people by choice.  Has any tech ever gotten a phone call saying "Everything is working great here.  Keep up the good work."  Of course not.  It's the same reason why I don't call my cable company to say the same thing.  That's our job.  Make things work and fix them when they don't.

But for anyone who's ever been on the other side of the phone when someone calls for help they know exactly what I mean.  Every time you talk to someone is invariably one of the worst parts of their day.  And as long as they can hang up feeling better than when they first called then I feel like I've done my job.  Even if the problem is not something that can be immediately solved, the person should leave the conversation confident that it will be resolved.

And once I'm no longer concerned with this positive outcome then I'll know the malaise has won.

But until that day I will remain the honest, friendly, helpful nerd who helps you fix your internet connection so you can tell your Facebook friends how lame I am.

America the Ignorant?

What's that?  You would like my far-reaching generalizations about America?  Well you're in luck.  I just so happen to have this blog post sitting around for you to nod your head/wag your finger at.

Here is my issue with America as a whole:  We are a country of willfully ignorant people.


I don't want to learn how to change my password because then it will be my responsibility to do it.  


I don't want to  learn a new skill so because then I'll have to get off welfare and get a job.  


I don't want to research the candidates.  Can't I just vote for the Republican?  Or the black one?  Or the one that takes her kids to hockey practice?

And the worst part?  We reward this kind of behavior.

When is the last time you heard of a person being denied their welfare check because they failed a drug test?  NEVER would be the answer for me personally.  Let me see if I can wrap my head around this:  A man has a job working 40 hours a week bringing home just barely enough money to feed his family.  On the weekends he meets up with his buddies to smoke a little weed.  One day he fails a drug test and gets fired.  Now he's on welfare and can collect money comparable to his former salary AND he can smoke anytime he wants to.  Why get another job?  There's absolutely zero advantage to it.

Somehow we have transformed into a country so caught up in its own hype that we can't see how we're destroying ourselves.  America is the "greatest country in the world".  I completely agree with this.  But we could do MUCH better.  

We give billions of dollars to other countries to help feed their homeless and give relatively nothing to our own.  We go on mission trips to Belize or some trendy Florida city to build/repair houses but our neighbor three streets over has a garbage bag for a living room window.  We adopt babies from Malawi but won't adopt babies from Milwaukee.  Was there anyone clamoring to help the New Orleans residents living in glorified shacks before the national news was covering a hurricane?  

There is such a malaise over the entire country that even the people who genuinely want to help are drowned out by PR firms pushing celebrity endorsed Twitter hash tags.  90% of politicians are nothing but a perpetual reelection machine (completely quantifiable and scientifically researched statistic, of course).  Don't make a scene by standing for something new or different or you won't be reelected.  

Then get out there and run for office yourself you may say.  But I'm not sure I could handle the game that would have to be played.  I don't have the connections, lineage, military experience, or wealth required to even get started.  Some may say that's a bullshit response.  Some of you are probably right.

But honestly, I can't decide whether I want to run for office, work my way into the government, and try to make the changes I crave, and the changes I think America needs, or whether I want to give away anything with a battery or a power cord and buy a farm in rural Wyoming.  My desire changes daily.  And for that reason, I cannot allow myself to get involved.  If you're going to do something as important as serving in our government then do it with 100% of your being.  If you can't give 100%, then get out of the way.  

I freely admit I'm a cynical bastard, but am I really?  Do I look for the worst in people or do I just rail against willful ignorance?

I used to pity the poor bastard who trudged through life, paycheck-to-paycheck, never paying attention to the world crumbling around him.  But the older I get the more I crave the simplicity of here and now.

NYC Mosque

Hot on the heels of my last post about Islam, today I'm talking about the proposed mosque near ground zero in New York City.  I have a simple question:

Are we a country that claims to have freedom of religion?  Yes?  Then what's the problem?

The argument about whether this mosque should be allowed is once again focused on the wrong issue.  The issue is not about whether it's a good idea to build this mosque. (It's probably not.  It would have a target on it that anti-Islamics could see half a world away.)  The argument is about whether it should be allowed to be built.  And the unequivocal answer to that question is Yes.  If the people who submitted the plans deem that the time isn't right or it's too risky to build right now, then that's their decision.

We can't have freedom for some whenever it's convenient.  We must have freedom for all, at all times.

It's the exact same problem when talking about any of the other hotbed issues; abortion, gay marriage, right-to-die, etc.  It's not about whether you agree with the specific opinion.  It's about whether you agree that each person has the right to make his/her own decisions about his/her own body.

The Qur'an Burning

I just saw another report about a bunch of idiots on Florida having a good old fashioned Qur'an burnin' in "honor" of September 11th.  Can someone please shoot these assholes before they cause more troops to die?  You don't think this might inflame the ENTIRE ISLAM NATION?  Stop for just one second and put yourself in their shoes.

You're a normal, everyday Muslim living life and trying to deal with the bastardization of your entire religion by twenty idiots with some airplanes.  And nine years (!!!) later some chuckleheads are burning your holy scriptures because they can't differentiate between coerced hatred and true religion.

Cut back to us.  Let's say a group of radical Christian terrorists (doesn't sound so evening news-friendly, does it?) fly over to Mecca and take down some buildings and a few thousand people.  Their surviving cult members release videos using scripture from the Bible to justify what they've done and call on all "true" Christians to take up the call and destroy the enemy.  Sound familiar? You think maybe if a group of Muslims got together on the ninth anniversary of that day to burn a whole slew of Bibles that normal, everyday Christians might get a little upset?

Islam ≠ Terrorism.  Correlation ≠ Causation.  All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.  But even that is a misnomer.  Just because these terrorists were Muslim does not mean every terrorist is a Muslim.  In fact, anyone with sense would argue these particular terrorists were not adhering to Islamic teachings when they chose to take another human's life.  Much like a man killing his family, saying God told him to do it, and then taking some obscure Bible reference out of context to support his claim.  This man may have been a "Christian" and he's using words from the Bible, but that doesn't mean Christianity supports his actions. 

Why can't people understand this?  

There's always another explanation:  Maybe this is just a publicity stunt.  That would put this man in a whole other category of evil.  

We already have enough scare tactics and cleverly designed stunts crafted by global conglomerates and politicians to tell us what we think.  Do we have to be subjected to the same schemes from our religious leaders now? 

Dream Sports Network

I the spirit of the return of football I thought I would have some sports talk.  I'll be honest; I can't stand the majority sports reporters.  They either try to sound too smart, or don't try to sound intelligent at all.  That said, I want to create a network with my fantasy team of sports analysts.  I'm not going to go into play-by-play or color commentary guys.  Too many to list for both the good and the bad.  But I will say that I, for one, enjoyed the Dennis Miller experiment on Monday Night Football.  I have never seen anywhere else where I can learn something about the Raiders' defensive line and 13th century existentialism at the same time.  And for that I thank you Dennis.

 I'm sure I will want to make changes to this in the future but here is my first draft.

These are my analysts:

NFL     - Chris Berman/Bill Simmons

MLB     - Bill Simmons/Chris Berman

NBA     - Bill Simmons/Dick Vitale

NHL     - Barry Melrose

CFB     - Chris Berman/Bill Simmons

CBB     - Dick Vitale/Bill Simmons

Chris Berman

This man can talk intelligently about ANY sport.  He almost makes me want to watch the CFL.  His calls are so iconic that my wife can quote them.  That's transcendence.  

Bill Simmons

Another guy who can make any sporting event intriguing.  I never miss a column from Bill.  His ability to mix knowledge with snarky comments is unparalleled.  He also never shies away from the truth.  If he made a bonehead prediction he will own up to it. 

Dick Vitale

Um...It's fucking Dick Vitale.  Seriously.  This guy could get me excited about defrosting my freezer. 

Barry Melrose

Possibly the only man to combine intelligence and a mullet since 1992.

I would also like to include Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser.  On my station PTI would be an hour long, and Mike and Tony would be allowed to say whatever the hell they wanted to say.  I'm so tired of public figures being crucified for speaking their mind...particularly when they are paid to do just that.

And speaking of Kornheiser, Ron Jaworski only works on Monday Night Football with Kornheiser as his foil.  I love Jaws, but I love him in 45 second chunks with plenty of downtime afterward.  I feel like Jaws is the opposite of Ron Burgundy.  Burgundy will read anything verbatim from the teleprompter, right down to the punctuation.  Jaworski just inserts 17 exclamation points after every sentence.  It's tiring to listen to.  But it was tolerable with Kornheiser following up each outburst with understated sarcasm.  

These are the people I would like to hear from regarding the sporting world.  I'm sure I've left people out and I will add them as they are brought to my attention this year.  Feel free to let me know in the comments who I forgot.

The Decisions a Man Makes

My wife and I found out several weeks ago that she is pregnant.  Save the condolences; this is a joyous occasion.  But it has really hammered home the concept of being an adult.  And I'm not taking it very well.

Being an adult has many perks.

-For my five-year-old it means that Daddy can play adult video games like Arkham Asylum and God of War III.
-For my mother it means she doesn't worry about me quite as much as she used to.
-For my father it means he can see a man he has helped shape begin to mold himself into his own entity.
-For my wife it means she can feel safe for herself and her family knowing her husband can handle any crisis life may throw at us.
-For my bandmates it means I seem a bit more flaky about practice times and late nights.

But what does it mean for me?

I feel old.  You know that annoying question everyone asks when they find out it's your birthday? Do you feel any older?  Yes I do.  Thanks for bringing it up, Asshole.

That's what being an adult means to me.  Feeling older.

-You're an adult when each new birthday takes you further away from your childhood instead of closer to being grown-up.
-You're an adult when you participate in conversations about 401Ks and life insurance and don't speak in future tense.
-You're an adult when you realize that everyone who told the eight-year-old you that you could be anything you wanted to be when you grew up were all full of shit.
-You're an adult when you finally start to loosen your grasp on the hope that all your dreams can still happen.

That last one is what hit me this year.  I have been obsessed with music for as long as I can remember.  I still remember the first time I heard a truly great song:  Elton John - Rocket Man.

I was raised on country and church music.  There's nothing intrinsically wrong with either genre.  But country has almost always reveled in it's willful ignorance.  And church music is immune from criticism, even if it's terrible.  If you say anything bad about either one then you're either a pretentious asshole or you don't believe in God, neither of which is inherently true, but occasionally both are spot on.  It has recently reached that point when talking about the president or soldiers serving overseas.  Being anti-war or anti-Obama has somehow come to equate being anti-patriotic, or anti-American.  Flight Surgeon Horse Shit.  Does being pro gay marriage make me gay?  Does being pro choice make me a pregnant woman?

But I seriously, seriously digress.

Childhood.  Elton John.  Rocket Man.

I'm sitting at my father's house doing god-knows-what after watching a college football game.  For some unknown reason my dad starts talking about music and suddenly realizes that I'm being deprived of decades worth of classics.  He drags out the turntable and cracks open the cabinet to reveal his collection of vinyl. (For the kids in the audience, these are the giant black discs that only people still concerned with sound quality still listen to.)  He tosses on his Elton John greatest hits album and carefully places the needle near the second set of grooves and proceeds to cause a musical revolution in my ears.  From that moment on all I ever wanted to do with my life was be a musician.  I didn't care about being rich or famous.  I just wanted to be able to make enough money playing music so that I didn't have to get a real job.

Flash forward ~15 years and you'll find a married, father, homeowner, college graduate working a job where he's under-utilized, under-appreciated, and under-paid.  Wait...what the hell happened?

But every bit of that is fine as long as your dream is still alive.  As long as you can make fun of your situation because it will be funny to look back on when you're living your ideal life, then you're fine.  But once your belief that you will achieve your dreams begins to falter, even for a second, then you're screwed.  Every day that passes pigeon-holes you into a little niche in life that becomes your inescapable label.

[Side Note: Today's post brought to you by the letters E, M, & O, with a soundtrack provided by The Cure.]

But watching your childhood dreams get curb-stomped by adulthood also provides you with a new perspective.

I love being a husband and I love being a dad.  I can't think of anything in life that is as difficult/frustrating/rewarding/awe-inspiring.

From my perspective, these are the decisions a man makes.  Family comes first. Dreams come second.  Both are important and both will brutally humble you.

Besides, living vicariously through your children makes the world go 'round.  Amirite pageant moms?

America's Prudish Nature

Hot on the heals (can a month-long gap be considered "hot on the heels"?) of my last sex rant, I come to you with a story (which of course inspired this rant) I saw a little while back.  It's a report about a family in Rahway, New Jersey that was forced to put clothes on a SNOW SCULPTURE after an anonymous complaint.

Can we please stop it with this ridiculous fear of sex?

I can't be the only one who sees the complete hypocrisy of the media.

We live in a country where MMA fights are broadcast on cable television, yet we still have an investigation from the FCC about a nipple that was shown for about half of a second SIX YEARS AGO!  The FCC calls the exposed breast "graphic and shocking".  Wait....I'm sorry....How in the hell is a breast graphic and/or shocking?  And it's more "graphic and shocking" than a guy getting his face beaten in on live television?

Commercials have demonstrated that it's okay to show as much of the top of the breast as physically possible.  TV shows and movie trailers can show the bottoms of the breasts.  Awards shows can zoom in on as much side-boob as they please.  And none of this warrants (not Warrant) a six year government investigation.  But show the forbidden one square-inch of nipple for a fraction of a second and you'll be demonized and portrayed as a detriment to society. 

And television is not the only place where sex is seen as a blemish on society.  Defamer has a long list of movies where the MPAA has either botched the rating or influenced the editing of a movie (which is censorship, I don't care how you defend it).  This kind of thing makes me irate.

Why would a movie like the Dark Knight (great movie) get a PG-13 rating?  Seriously MPAA? You think the Dark Knight would be appropriate for a 13 year-old?  But take three scenes riddled (seewhatIdidthere?) with dead bodies and replace them with two seconds of a topless woman and suddenly Christopher Nolan is a perverted maniac who has to make cuts just to get an "R".

So the message I'm seeing so far is that it's okay to show ridiculous amounts of violence as long as you don't use too many "bad" words or show a boob.

Let me ask the three of you who will read this a question:  Have you ever heard of anyone who was traumatized after seeing nudity in a film?  Even the ones with actually sex scenes instead of just a topless shower scene? I'm talking about mainstream, theatrical movies, not the films your uncle made in college.   I have never personally known a sex scene in a movie to cause anything more harmful than a little excitement or an awkward chuckle.  I've never seen anyone have to close their eyes so they didn't have nightmares about Kate Winslet's breast in Titanic.  But I have known many people, including myself, that find graphic violence hard to watch many times. 

Personally, I would much rather my son see breasts or a sex scene in a movie than see someone shot in the head.  I just cannot fathom how naked bodies can be so despised.  Let's be honest; everyone over the age of 12 is thinking about sex all the time anyway.

Is it just that the masses are all embarrassed that we're a sex driven society and we're always thinking about it?  Is that why we feel the need to condemn it publicly?

Or do some people honestly hate seeing the stunning beauty of the human body at its finest?

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

I apologize to anyone over the age of 25 for the title of this blog.  You will now need to go cleanse your aural palate with something less condiment inspired.  (For those of you who don't remember 1990, or don't have VH1, please see this)

What I really want to talk about is sex.  Specifically, why our government (and the Vatican) thinks they can stop teenagers from doing it. (Warning: this rant reads much better if you act like a 14 year old boy every time you see the words sex, aspect, or "doing it")

As usual, a news report has sparked my latest rant.  CNN recently did a report on the new health care bill.  I don't want to get started on the entire bill because I don't have 19 hours to type everything I want to say.  Instead, I will focus on one aspect of it that the American government has been trying to shove down our throats for decades:  Abstinence.  CNN reports that there is $250 million tucked away in the new bill to be used for "abstinence-focused" education over a five-year period.  Programs that qualify must "teach that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems". The obvious problem with this statement is that it's almost complete bullshit.  I say almost because they qualify their claim with the word "certain".  Condoms, when used properly, are incredibly effective at preventing most STDs and pregnancy.  I'm not sure what the exact percentage is but you're obviously reading this on an internet-capable device of some sort.  Go Bing it.  (Okay Microsoft.  I tried it and it just doesn't work for me aesthetically or audibly.  Sorry.  I think it may be because it just doesn't make middle school boys giggle like "Google it" does.)  And if you get someone pregnant while you're using a condom then you're either doing it wrong or your son will retire early from his carpentry career to become the David Blaine of 31 A.D. 

Let's try to think of another huge project aimed at our kids with plenty of government funding and media hoopla.  D.A.R.E. you say?  You mean the program to teach kids to "Just Say No" that actually taught kids how to say "Yes"?  Throwing money behind a clever slogan and hoping it sticks doesn't work.  If only we had decades worth of American history to learn from.   And playing the "I'm older and smarter" card sure as hell doesn't work either.  Just try talking to a five year old.

So I guess the American government looks pretty dumb trying to cram the same message down childrens' throats for decades.  But if they look dumb then how does the Vatican look?  They have woven anti-condom rhetoric into their demonizing of sex for just as long.  Despite the fact that allowing their missionaries to hand out condoms in the African villages they visit, or allowing their congregation to use them, would almost certainly cut down on the spread of AIDS and other STDs.  No amount of preaching is going to stop people from having sex.  Surely the Vatican must know this.  And yet, they would rather allow people to pass STDs around than to have them use protection.  That must take a level of dedication that I wasn't aware was possible.  Dedication to belligerently maintaining that their solution is the only way.  But I guess they've gotten pretty good at that in the last couple of millennia.  The same CNN report from above also states that a "January 2009 study in Pediatrics found that religious teens who take virginity pledges are less likely to use condoms or birth control when they become sexually active, and just as likely to have sex before marriage as their peers who didn't take pledges."

Just to recap:  Preaching abstinence doesn't work.  Virginity pledges don't work.  Making sex seem dirty and taboo doesn't work.

Why does it seem like giving a fourteen year old boy internet access and plenty of free time is a better option than any of these?

I didn't really hope to accomplish anything with this rant but I think I did.  It has made me even more adamant that my kids will be taught that condoms will be readily available when they're ready and more importantly, masturbation is a great thing.  You can't get an STD from it.  You never get rejected.  It causes no emotional drama.  I'm not saying I have all the answers (far from it) but who knows how many lives these simple things could have saved?

Tiger Woods

Here goes nothing....How arrogant is this motherfucker?!?!  First, he holds a "press conference", in Florida,  while the Accenture Match Play Tournament is going on, in Arizona.  He reads three words at a time, making Obama sound like the Micro Machines man reciting a tongue twister, and then doesn't take any questions from the press that he hand picked.  Then a few weeks later he tosses out some five-minute interviews where he comes up with new phrases for "I'm sorry.  Please love me again."  And now he's going to do his first "real" press conference on Monday, April 5th.  Hmm, what else is happening that day?  Not much.  Just MLB's Opening Day and the NCAA Men's Basketball National Championship Game.  Yeah.  Does he honestly think anyone in the sporting world would voluntarily go listen to his morally castrated ass talk about moving on, or whatever bullshit he's going to say, when those other events are going on?  Short answer: No.  It's going to be pretty difficult for these reporters to write their piece on Tiger's new-found open honesty or "steely resolve" when their audio recording of the press conference is muddled with the Indians game that was streaming from their laptop in the background and the Duke v. Michigan State game on the TV in front of them.  Mickelson, Ogilvy, and Nicklaus are speaking the next day.  Could he not speak on the traditional day?  I guess not.  I'm sure that would detract from the inevitable media frenzy around him.

Speaking of the media frenzy, Tiger is doing one of two things right now regarding Jesse James.

1. He's sending trucks full of thank you cards and booze.  Because the only thing that makes an anal/waitress/no-condom obsessed serial adulterer look good is a tattoo/Nazi obsessed serial adulterer who cheated on America's sweetheart.

2. He's plotting revenge for stealing the thunder from his tell-all book.  That's the only logical place for Tiger to go now.  Say he returns to golf and dominates (which he probably will), he's still going to catch flack for the rest of his career about something that happened OFF the course.  But if he (and by "he" I mean his ghost writer) pours out his soul in an autobiography that focuses on his "troubled" years, then he can be allowed to move on.  But unless he becomes a super-villain or cures cancer, he's still going to be know as the guy who dominated golf while cheating on his wife with 47 different chicks.  Let's be honest, even if he becomes a super-villain who also cures cancer, the adultery will still makes its way into the conversation.  That's just how the media works.



Let me just say that Tiger Woods doesn't owe the public anything.  If he doesn't want to ever talk about anything other than golf for the rest of his life, then he should be allowed to do so.  What goes on in his personal life is 100% between him and his family.  I honestly don't want to know.  I can't stand the people who feel that it's their right to know what went on.

Let's back up for a minute.  When someone completely and utterly dominates something (sports, music, movie, etc.) there are generally two camps.

The first camp loves said celebrity.  Even if they don't enjoy that celeb's team/songs/movies.  They celebrate watching one person make other people look terrible at their own job.  This camp splinters when a scandal hits.  Either toward denial or camp number two.

The second camp hates said celebrity for the same reason that camp one loves them.  They are making everyone else look bad and it brings down the whole sport/genre/industry.  These are the people who lap up every once of coverage during the celeb's public shaming.

There is a third camp that genuinely likes the person but that's usually only until that person gets traded or puts out a bad album/movie....or cheats on a Swedish model/Miss Congeniality.


Lessons for today's rant:

1.  Fame sucks sometimes
2.  If a past transgression becomes public, at least act humble
3.  If you don't cheat on your wife, you can't get caught. 

Copyright Rant 2.0

This link will take you to an article talking about how BMG, Beyonce's label, has just removed music videos from Beyonce's official YouTube channel for copyright infringement. I cannot confirm how many videos were on the channel before this happened (it's my damn ears that keeps me away) but it appears only one actual video is still up.  I'm not going to go into a long, drawn-out, math-filled rant about how ridiculous this is.  Because that's pretty obvious.  I'm simply going to ask some questions and get out of the way.



How does Beyonce putting up her own videos cause harm to BMG?

Would this not be considered incredibly cheap advertising?

Why would a company want to hinder their artist from reaching new fans?

The Ridiculousness of the RIAA

I just read yet another article about how file-sharing is destroying music and movies.  This gem of a quote came from the walking.....well....there's really no concise word for hypocritical, ego-maniacal, over-hyped, self-important, blow-hard, douchebag....I guess I'll just call him by his name (which I'm sure is his real name) Bono.  I would rather listen to Bozo sing Bavarian creme pie opera for about four days straight before I would voluntarily listen to Bono spout his earth-shattering revelations about saving the world.

He claims that file-sharing hurts the creators and gives huge profits to the ISPs.  Did I miss a part of the conversation where people were paying their ISPs for the music they were illegally downloading?  How does someone downloading, say, a U2 album, turn into profit for the ISP?  That part of the statement is ludicrous (not Ludacris.  I'm sure he's one of the affected artists).  But the portion about artists being hurt is more debatable.  I understand that it would be taking the MASSIVE 5-10% per CD profit that they might see, eventually.  But that's not the only way artists make money.

Let's do the math.  You buy a CD for $15.  Crazy price, but roll with me.  Let's say the artist gets 10%.  That's $1.50.....before taxes and God knows what else. (Check out this blog post by Steve Albini, the producer for Nirvana's In Utero album.  10% is probably being super generous unless they've already sold a ton of copies.)   Multiply that by 1 Million downloads, and subtract the taxes, and you're right around $1 Million being supposedly taken from them.  But suppose that 10% of these people really enjoy the music and want to support the artist.  That's 100,000 people.  Some of them may use P2P as an on-demand radio; scanning through albums to see if they like it and then heading to Best Buy or iTunes to buy the album.  We'll get to these people in a moment.  But let's say they don't even do that.  Let's say they go with the "Screw them.  I already have the music.  Why would a pay for it again?" mantra.  What happens when the person wants to see the artist live?  Or have a great concert t-shirt?  Are they going to be able to log onto The Pirate Bay and download a ticket?  Absolutely not.  Let's get back to the 100,000 on-demand radio people.  Of the 100,000 file-sharers, let's say 1% actually go see the artist live.  I'm assuming tickets would be around $30.  (Way, WAY, low for some artists, I know.)  That would be $30,000.  Not a ton of money but's it's $30,000 more than they would have seen if that evil, malicious file-sharing scum hadn't illegally obtained the music.

Let's back up for just a second.  The music and movie industry likes to pretend that every illegal download equals one less sale.  Get real.  You're telling me that someone who downloads the entire U2 discography (I'm sticking with the metaphor here) would have bought all 12 "mind-expanding" masterpieces?  I think not.  More than likely it robbed them of four or five of their most popular songs from iTunes.  So rather than robbing the artist of $180 per discography (12 albums at $15 a piece), they're realistically losing about five bucks.

I don't want to sound like someone who doesn't care about the artist.  As a musician myself, I think about these things quite often.  Ideally, each artist would be well compensated for their art.  But if I had to choose between getting screwed out of money by a huge conglomerate-style record company and having someone who might actually care about the music getting it illegally, I would honestly take the latter.  If we take one last look at the math we'll see that the artist could actually come out better that way.  1,000 album sales might net the artist $80 or so.  But if two people, out of 1,000 illegal downloads, buy $30 concert tickets for them and a friend, that's $120.  Probably a net of $100, maybe $110.

Obviously, the record company might not want to finance the recording of another album if the artist didn't bring them money.  But if a band became popular through this newest iteration of bootleg cassette tapes then they would make plenty of money for the record company through other means.  I'm obviously speaking in ideals here.  But I honestly don't see this as a huge erosion of the music industry.  If anything else, the record companies have spent a disproportionate amount of time trying to shove the next big thing down our throat, whether we want it or not.  Is it any wonder that album sales are down when the Black Eyed Peas won THREE Grammies this year?  THREE?  What a joke.

I guess what I'm trying to say is:  The sky is not falling.  The bottom has not fallen out of the music sales barrel.  Pirates are not ruining the music industry.

Support the artists, give us better music, and give us more opportunities to legally obtain that music.  This is my request for the music industry.

I eagerly await your unified and unanimous response.

Love, Andy

ESPN on the XBOX

If this rumor about ESPN streaming live sporting events to the XBOX is true, then I officially have no reason to pay for cable.  Right now, I could be perfectly happy with cable on Saturdays and Sundays (and select Mondays and Thursdays (stupid midweek football)) from September through February.  That's all I need.  I would be willing to wait for the DVDs of my favorite shows to come out before I watched them.  And if Netflix continues improving the options for streaming content, then a simple $9 subscription could net me a season's-worth of catch-up (not ketchup) for my scripted sci-fi (or SyFy...Hey, I'm Imagining Greater) sweet-tooth.  (That last sentence was really difficult to say for an ex-Blockbuster employee)

Random Thoughts

This link will take you to a page with actual Pat Robertson quotes.  After reading these ten gems, how can anyone stand behind this man?  He stands in his immaculate conception studio spouting his bigoted hate-speech and people listen to him, and agree with him, because he invokes God?  I don't wish ill to anyone, but if this man would have personally experienced any of the situations that he has trivialized over the years, I dare say he might keep his mouth shut.

Haitians worship the devil? Hurricanes are a response for homosexuality? Liberal media is worse than the Holocaust? Feminists "leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians"? This guy is perfect for some dick-wad suit on The Office.  But for someone who is supposed to be living a promoting Christianity I think he's been severely miscast.  Like Hayden Christensen as Anakin bad.  (and I actually liked the prequels, just not Hayden's acting)

Conan

Am I the only person who thinks that Jay Leno is massively over-rated? (that's rhetorical by the way)  For my money, Conan O'Brien is the funniest, most entertaining, most engaging late night host I've personally watched.  I say this having never actually watched Jimmy Fallon's show.  I enjoy most of what he's done and love the fact that he treats video game releases and nerd website editors like other shows treat movie releases and reality TV stars.  (plus - THE ROOTS!!!)  I just can't bring myself to stay up until 12:30 when I have to get up early the next morning to go solve world hunger reset some guy's password. 

I'm sure Leno didn't have the massive following that he ended with when he first started.  (also known as people who fell asleep watching E.R. or their late local news)  Could any late night host be any farther from the legend Leno replaced?  But NBC stuck with him because they just completely screwed the guy who should have taken over (this guy, who, by the way, is way funnier than Leno).  Pulling the plug before he got a chance to carve out his place in late night would be premature and inappropriate. 

Flash forward (not FlashForward, that's ABC) 17 years and NBC is in a similar situation.  Except they've compounded the problem by hanging onto one guy too long, giving up on one guy too soon, and wanting to push a third guy even later into the morning.  Giving Leno a show at 11:35 and pushing Conan and Fallon back a half hour would be a terrible move.  What happens in five years when Leno wants to retire?  Does NBC replace him with some other half hour comedy and keep the new air-times?  Or do the revert back to the timeslots that were good enough for the show's first seven decades and try to pretend like they didn't completely screw everyone involved? (Yes, 2010 marks the beginning of the seventh decade to see the Tonight Show)

I'm sure I'm not the first person to suggest Comedy Central as a remedy to this corporate clusterfuck.  Apparently Stephen Colbert even offered Conan his timeslot last night.  I'm not sure whether he was serious or not (and honestly, sometimes it's hard to tell with Colbert) but I think it's a brilliant idea.  Move the Colbert Report to 10:30, keep the Daily Show at 11:00, and give Conan the 11:30 timeslot on a network that knows how to stick behind talent.  I would gladly watch this two hour block of comedy gold on a nightly basis.  (Okay, let's be honest.  I would probably fall asleep with my TV on that station.  But does it really matter to the network whether anyone is actually watching the TV that's tuned to their station?  I think not.  In fact, wouldn't they rather the person be asleep so that they wouldn't be temped to change the channel when a commercial comes on?  I think yes.)  With this late night block in place, Comedy Central would absolutely dominate that two hour block with the 18-35 demographic. 

I don't want to hear about it being a cable network.  Just look at the last several years' Emmy and Golden Globe nominees and winners.  Plenty of cable networks there. 

I just think this is the best way for NBC to get Leno back on the Tonight Show (everyone knows that's what they both want anyway).  And it's also a way for Conan to tell them to shove their new timeslot and go steal a ton of viewers in the process.  And did anyone see when these three appeared on each others shows?  It was a large portion of the afore mentioned Comedy Gold.

Conan, please accept this open letter as a formal request to prove, finally, that talented, charasmatic people can triumph in the face of safe, overly politically correct, corporate homogenization.

Cinema

I have been extremely lax on staying current with movies.  But in the last couple of weeks I have made an effort to see several movies that I missed throughout the year (I guess I have to say last year now).  This will probably be a lengthy post so I'll talk about the others later. 


First up was Avatar (not Avatar).  We had a difficult time deciding between that one and Sherlock Holmes.  But the deciding factor was the cinema experience.  I figured Sherlock Holmes would be equally great or disappointing (which is sure to be damn near impossible with the people involved) whether we watched it on the big screen or on our mammoth 32" TV at home.  But a movie like Avatar, especially in 3D, would suffer a visual beating, worthy of a sure-fire Oscar-winning performance by Hillary Swank (no one takes an on-screen beating like her), if we forced its fetish-in-waiting Na'vi onto our screen.


The main and side plots are nothing revolutionary, but they're also not as derivative as some reviews made it sound.  Many parts were somewhat predictable but just as many twists were unexpected.  The acting was superb (as superb as one can be playing clichéd stereotypes with myriad explosions all around).  But the cinematography and visual effects are where this movie shines.  Many times (I lost count how many) I couldn't tell whether some elements of the shot were real or digital.  And these weren't easy things to digitally render.  Moving trees/waterfalls and the like.  

I'm still not sure how I feel about this.  On one hand I'm super excited that technology has gotten to that point.  But I also understand that means that actors will now stand in a green room and talk to themselves for a month or so during filming and then see the finished product when we do.  I'm not actor, but I can't help but think this will harm the art of acting.  I remember great acting moments just as much as great action moments.  I'll never forget working at Blockbuster and having someone mention Heat.  Being incredibly ignorant of most cinema when I was hired, I had never heard of it.  Sitting down to watch this movie, and coming upon a scene with Pacino and De Niro sitting across from each other, acting their asses off,  really made an impression.  If you haven't seen it, just buy it.  You'll want to see it a few more times. 



(Side Note:  As someone who has played MMORPGs for many years I have seen my fair share of horribly rendered water.  However, I am currently playing Lord of the Rings Online and I most definitely does not suffer from this affliction (not Affliction).  I have been consistently impressed with nearly everything in my almost three years of playing.  I can't give Turbine enough praise for how they've run the game from beta through now.)

At one point in the movie I shifted in my seat (it is 150 minutes after all) and leaned my elbows on my knees.  I reached up to swat some dust away from my face twice before I realized it wasn't dust; at least not any that I could actually touch.  The 3D effects are incredibly subtle in this movie.  I am by no means a 3D movie connoisseur.  But every 3D movie I've seen, save for Avatar, has used the effects as nothing more than a gimmick.

Also, scale would normally be an issue when dealing with the size differences of things that are in this movie.  I absolutely love the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but there are a few times  in the films when something just looks...off, with respect to the scale.  Nothing looks wrong but it just doesn't lock in.  That was never an issue in Avatar.  You're made to experience the queasiness of seeing something so large it breaks your sense of scale completely. This movie makes you feel scale in the pit of your stomach.  This feeling and the 3D effects combine beautifully in one early scene in particular.  A giant, and I mean giant, vehicle rolls onto screen and you see people in jeeps (or something similar) in the foreground.  The scene lasts longer than a normal shot of this nature would and I think it's for the sole reason of letting you totally take in the scale.  But rather than put the mammoth vehicle in a gimmicky 3D shot, Cameron uses the effects on the tiny foreground elements in the bottom right-hand corner.  This effectively pulls your eyes to that part of the screen and forces you to refocus when you look at the background.  My descriptions don't do it justice but you'll understand when you see it.  Nothing really happens in the scene but it still sticks in my mind.

I don't like to give stars or thumbs or bald, naked, gold men but I did enjoy the movie.  I would watch it again and recommended it to others.