Crowdsourced: The Movie

     Okay, I found this awesome thing. It's been floating around the internet for five years, but, miraculously, this is the first time I've ever seen it. You've probably seen it already, geekier sects of my hypothetical readership, but for everyone who hasn't, this is a very neat experiment in the recent fad of crowd-sourced productions (meaning a work of either dramatic, artistic, or literary presentation based off of feedback from an audience--the crowd, therefore, is the source.) Lindsay "The Nostalgia Chick" Ellis is currently experimenting with a novel produced in a similar fashion (which you should totally check out as soon as you're done here: It's called Fifty Shades of Green.)

     This particular example echos the famous Raiders of the Lost Arc: The Adaptation, a shot-for-shot remake of the classic action-adventure film done by a bunch of kids in their backyard with home made special effects over the course of years.

    Anyway, to cut to the chase, here's a really neat little bit of internet cooperation that I found endlessly amusing and I'm sure you will, too. That is, if the words "but I was going to go into Toshi Station to pick up some power converters" means anything to you at all.

14:07 and 20:06 are my personal favorites.

Enjoy, and, until next time, I'm Walter Cronkite.

Finally and Funnily Enough

     Okay, so the news that's breaking at the moment is that the second of the two terrorists responsible for the Boston tragedy was apprehended in a boat after being discovered by helicopters equipped with heat sensing cameras has been shot and apprehended. First off, hurray! One more disturbed criminal off the streets and behind bars is one less terrorist for us to worry about in these trying times.

    Secondly, there was another boat that was searched first. And therein lies my story.

"Huh. I wonder where he's going with this..."

Oh, God, Why?

     I... I just don't know anymore. I used to think that there was some good left in modern American culture, or at least pop culture, but even that has been shaken to its core. To preface: This truly is a tragic day for all of geekdom. Prepare your torches and pitchforks and set your sights on Hollywood, because I have a premonition that this development will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. I mean, one can only take so much before the pot boils over, and I think the gas on the burner has just been turned up to the crucial setting. 

     "Is it truly the Apocalypse?" shout the cowering masses as panic begins to grip the crowded streets. "Can the rumors be true? Surely there is some mistake?!" 

    Brother, don't I wish. Don't I wish that there was some mistake--that this really is some cosmic blunder. But no, it appears that the ghastly rumors are true. The worst nightmare has become reality. 

     J. J. Abrams is putting Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars VII. 

     

"Oh, Jesus have mercy! Run! Forget the children! Save yourselllvvvess..."

The Right Side of History

I know that it's fashionable these days to "tag your triggers," but seeing as how I founded this blog for the ultimate purpose of subverting trends in the twittersphere, I shall skip the trigger tagging and simply say that, if anyone reading these rambling rants has been making it a point to avoid the trending topic of marriage equality (which I fervently recommend against considering it will undoubtedly prove to be one of the defining Supreme Court cases of my generation), please, read at your own risk.

     For those of you sensible enough to stay well informed, you can continue at your leisure. 

Apologist Philosophies

     It came to my attention today at the cafeteria lunch table that a story I posted last week (the one about Anime vs. Comic Books) may have offended some people. The friends that I mentioned as holding pro-Japanese pop culture stances commented on the misinformed nature of my "Anti-anime rant." The way I see it, if I offended my closest friends, chances are some of the other people out there, namely the ones I don't know in person.

     The Anime thing wasn't the only post that I received some complaints about. An acquaintance spent a full three hours sending me hate mail through Facebook's instant-messaging service because of my support of Barack Obama. The kicker is that this guy isn't a conservative, he's a libertarian: he says that President Obama is too conservative. I suppose there must be others out there who feel the same way but lacked the outlet for complaints.

     Now that I've listed all of the things that I should probably apologize for, I'm going to make a point of not apologizing. When some people say "offensive," I say "though provoking." If you'll notice at the top of the page, my mission statement is to "enlighten some and infuriate others" and my reasoning behind this is that anger leads to different perspectives. If you feel offended by any of my content, that means that I'm doing my job. It means that you're reading a perspective you disagree with, which can lead to new discoveries about yourself, about others, and about controversial topics. So feel free to be angry. I encourage it. What's more, if you feel particularly infuriated and motivated to express your fury, please leave a scathing comment or shoot me an angry email. Just no death threats. My email server has a screen for stuff like that.

     Well, that was thoroughly serious. To ease the tension, here's a picture of two Darth Travolta and Samuel L. Fett.

"And I will execute great vengeance upon the Rebellion with furious force choking; and when I send my probe-droids out to find them, they shall know that I am the Lord Vader." Palpatine- 25:17

Somnolence

     Okay, this is a little divergent from my normal fares on this site, but I need to get it out there into the vast reaches of the world wide web.

     Do you ever get that feeling, when you're so tired that you become euphoric on your own exhaustion? It's the sort of feeling when, at 2 a.m. after a long day, you sit down to watch a mindless comedy like Pineapple Express or anything Adam Sandler has ever produced and, inexplicably, you end up laughing your head off? Under any other state of consciousness, you know that you wouldn't find stuff like that funny, but you can't help but find it hilarious because you're just so frickin' tired?

Oh god, my fatigue makes me want to laugh at this... 

     Well, if you are familiar with this state of mind, answer me this: Do you ever get really angry when you're that tired? An insatiable frustration arises in you that you can only answer by falling asleep and waking up in eight hours thinking "Wow, why did I get so irrationally angry at Lando Calrissian for spending three years in Jabba's palace without freeing Han? I must have been really tired. Or high." 

     I had this feeling last night after a party that ran from 3 to 10 p.m. I was falling asleep at about 1 or 1:30, and I was just so angry at the universe. Why? Because quidditch doesn't exist. I brought myself to the point of tears because I was indescribably frustrated that I couldn't just hop on a broomstick and through the quaffle through one of the three goal posts. 

     "Why, God," I demanded. "Why would you create a universe where wizarding sports only exist in the depths of our imaginations? Please, please let me play quidditch, God! I need this. Just this one thing!" 

     Thank you for humoring my arguably broken sanity. I swear I won't post anything this weird again unless it's both weird and informative. Or funny. 

Superman vs. Goku

     As promised, here's a little light-hearted but deep-minded follow up to that horrible political drama from earlier this week. But first, as always, allow me to bore you with an exposition-dump of background information (and also a cover illustration to tie the title in to the rest of the post):

This is only tangentially related to the meat of this article. 

     So, the above image, for those of you who were born and raised on Mars or at the bottom of the ocean, is of Goku, a Japanese character famous for his incarnations in the Dragon Ball manga/anime and its spinoffs and remakes fighting Superman, who is perhaps the single most influential fictional character in history. So, why, exactly are these two superhuman characters duking it out with their otherworldly powers? 

      Well....