Wow, I`m Bored

Number One Gun, U2, Three Days Grace, Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, Five for Fighting, Six Feet Under, Avenge Sevenfold (S Club 7, if that doesn't work for you), Maroon 5 + Three Dog Night, Nine Inch Nails, Ten Years After, Finger 11, 12 Stones, Eiffel 65 - B52s, ... nope, cannot continue (also to lazy too).

Flying Cars

This strip got me thinking, technology is known for rapid growth. People always throw around the saying, "in a year, your computer processor will be half the size and run at double the speed."  Okay maybe not that exactly, but it is commonly known that technology growth is exponential.  This made me wonder why we actually don't have flying cars already and why developments in that technological field seem slow in comparison to other industries.  I thought maybe some science fiction was better at predicting the future than others (such as George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four).  Looking into this, I found myself assuming what most people likely assume.  It is 21st century and flying cars have been imagined in every different way in TV, movies and novels.  But, despite it being the 21st century, it is only 2011.  Some of the most popular flying car examples I could think of were The Jetsons and The Fifth Element.  There is still time for flying cars to make their way from auto show prototypes to every suburban driveway, because The Jetsons takes place in 2062 and The Fifth Element in 2263.  Closer predictions, such as the year 2019 in Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep? (or Blade Runner), show more restricted flying cars like hovercrafts or those limited to flying close to the Earth's surface.  Other times the flying cars are only available to the government and wealthy people, as in the case of Blade Runner.  So maybe the flying cars out today are leading us towards this next step and soon towards flying cars for the common man.

[Sometimes when I look at how much time I spend thinking about or referencing a comic strip that should have only taken 30 seconds out of my day, I wish Randall Munroe would write a bad strip every once in a while.]

Wording

The ordering of words is important.  Simple differences in the wording and order of a sentence can completely change its meaning and how it comes across to people.  Let use the first date example.  Imagine the reaction of a woman when her date tells her he "lives with his mom."  She obviously thinks he is a loser with no future.  Now what if the man had said, "my mom lives with me."  The woman likely thinks he is a nice, sympathetic guy for taking in his mom.  Both statements tell you that the man and his mom live together, but neither actually specify who owns the house they live in.  Now if the man on the date wanted to admit who owned the house, he could say "I live in my mom's house" to the same reaction as the first statement.  But, if he stated that he lived in his mom's house differently, say "I moved into my mom's house."  He never specifies when he moved into his mom's house (whether at birth or recently).  With the assumption that the man on the date is not a teenager, this statement is usually taken to mean that he moved back into his mom's house, possibly to help take care of her or something.  Simply rearranging the words gives the woman a very different opinion of the man.  Weird.

NHL Sucks [Up]

I'm tired of the NHL and Commissioner Gary Bettman pandering to Americans. Most Canadians remember Jim Balsillie's several attempts and legal battles to purchase a team and move it to Canada. The NHL put Balsillie through as many legal battles as they could and always found ways to fund the teams in their current locations. Now the Atlanta Thrashers are struggling for funding and both Quebec City and Winnipeg are willing to bring in the team. Despite being 28th in attendance, the league has stated they will do everything possible to keep the team in Atlanta. Teams in the USA are dying left, right and center. Despite being consistently terrible for the last 40 years, the Toronto Maple Leafs are still fifth in attendance this season. The Canadiens are second, Canucks eighth and Senators tenth. Detroit is in fourth and they attract many Ontarians close to the border. [See 2010-2011 Attendance Report] Canadian teams are thriving whether they win or lose. There are dozens of cities in Canada that could easily support an NHL team, yet it is unlikely they will ever get one. The NHL focuses it's attention on keeping dying American teams alive and securing American TV deals. If more teams are located in Canada, they will consistently bring in revenue for the league and TV deals in Canada are guaranteed. I can't say for sure why this is, but one possible reason is Commissioner Bettman is American and wants to bring revenue to American cities. What perplexes me is how a sport toted as Canadian, has an American running its elite league.

This isn't the only attempt the NHL has made to please American fans. Some may remember FoxTrax, the electronic puck used by Fox in the 90s to follow puck movements with glowing streaks. Clips are easily found online, and you'll see that they are quite ridiculous looking [See 1996 All-Star Highlights].  Americans were complaining that it was too difficult to follow the puck on the ice (despite them being complete opposite colours).  I would argue other "gimmicks" and changes to the league were made to bring more excitement to the game and attract less loyal hockey fans in the United States.  Some of these are the change to a shootout after a brief overtime.  I had never seen an NHL shootout before this change and yet it was included in all my EA Sports NHL games growing up.  Penalty shots only occurred on rare occasions and fans got excited when these were called.  I think this change was made to make this excitement happen more often.  This isn't a bad thing (I find them very suspenseful), but I think changing the game to get more American viewers is bad.  Other things like the All-Star Fantasy Draft and the addition of the lottery system as part of the entry draft seem like ways the NHL tries to gather American media attention and give fans more to bet on.  If this is truly Canada's game, the NHL should realize the financial potential of the Canadian markets and allow them to develop teams.  Many hockey fans in several provinces and major cities in Canada must travel great distances to watch an NHL team.  If teams are located in these areas, the low attendance in American cities will increase greatly.  Plus, once teams are established and have a loyal fan base, tickets prices can increase and further increase revenues.  To put this into perspective, the cheapest Thrashers tickets are $10 USD each and the cheapest Leafs tickets are $35.50 CDA (which I believe is standing room behind the very back row).  Not to mention the lengthy waiting list for season tickets in Toronto, whereas I can sign up now to get excellent season seats for 2011-2012 in Atlanta and many other cities.

[Oh, I forgot one thing.  Why was the Star Spangled Banner sung during the NHL Heritage Classic between two Canadian teams (Flames and Canadiens) and played in Calgary, Alberta?]

This is Heavy Duty

This video is great!  Good music and a plethora of 80s film references.  James Roday just peed a little somewhere.

Benefits of Hybrids

Hybridization doesn't just give us eco-friendly cars.  Allow me to explain.  Vampires are a huge craze right now, but they have their downfalls.  They are restricted to darkness and drink blood, which usually involves killing people or animals.  Bam, vampire-human hybrid [and the dirt is gone]!  Imagine this, a vampire who can not only venture into sunlight [oh look, we didn't even have to make them sparkle], but whenever they feel the taste for blood they just bite their tongue literally.  A continuous cycle of fresh blood for themselves and no killing of humans.  Now the benefits of being a vampire can truly be taken advantage of.  Another hybrid with vampires was Michael, the lycan-vampire hybrid, from Underworld: Evolution.  As you know if you've seen the movie, he gained superior strength and the advantages of both species.  That's right, movie science wins.

Another example of these benefits is the iPad, which is basically half iPod and half laptop.  Not to mention all the popular smart phones that combine touch and full keyboard phones.  Even examples not from the modern era show the benefits of hybridization.  Take some of the mythological hybrids into consideration.  Snakes and reptiles are both pretty cool animals.  Merge them (sometimes add bat wings) and you have one of the coolest animals.  But, it's obvious that if you add two cool animals together you get one super awesome beast.  Well, look at Pegasus.  Horses and birds are not the most dominate animals, but a hybrid of horse and bird creates a majestic animal worthy of fierce warriors and gods.  Even words get better with hybridization.  Hybrid words (derived from two separate languages), such as automobile and television, are things we can't live without and other hybrid words are great if you want to sound smart (e.g. bioluminescence, macroinstruction, or quadraphonic).

Being Canadian, I shouldn't leave out Marquis wheat.  This was the hybrid wheat that helped Canada grow in population and industry due to its ability to survive in many harsh conditions.  Clearly there are more benefits to hybridization than environmentally friendly cars.  One might also notice many of these examples are very old.  Hybrids are nothing new, society has just become too lazy to create a new name for hybrid (or hybrid-electric vehicles), so they've just been called hybrids.

File Sharing

Why is file sharing considered wrong?  Is it illegal to invite a big group of friends over and watch a new DVD you purchased?  What about letting friends and family members borrow it and watch it at their homes?  Or to play a new record you bought to all your friends.  Well, people have been sharing media this way for decades and for some reason now that we have the internet to support sharing files, it becomes illegal.  I don't know about you, but I wasn't taught in kindergarten to tell other kids to go buy their own toy to play with. I learnt to share.

YouTube Theory

Why has YouTube become so popular and vlogging become a viable career?  My theory is based on its personal connection and the reality of vloggers.  TV series and movies all have characters that we love.  Viewers could see themselves being best friends with a character or dating one.  But, in the end these imaginary connections are made with characters played by actresses and actors.  Since most often these characters don't exist, the imagined connection is impossible.  I never understood how videos of people living their lives or talking about their day could garner so much attention and following.  I think it is because just like with TV and movie characters we can develop a connection to the vloggers, except that the characters of most vloggers are real (exceptions: lonelygirl15, sexynerdgurl).  Thus, no matter how ridiculous having your imagined relationship with the character is, it is actually possible.  Furthermore, the characters of vloggers are infinite (except for in death), whereas TV series and movies finish or get cancelled.  Any connections imagined with these characters is lost.  Due to the excess number of sitcoms and movies, the loss is only momentary as we develop a new connection.  But with connections imagined through vlogs, even if the user stopped uploading videos and closed their channel the connection can still exist.  This is because that person is still the same character they were in their vlogs (themselves) and the connection is made with their personality.  If you bumped into one of these people on the street, they would still act and dress in the same way you got to know them in.  Whereas, for example, actresses playing a cute, awkward girl will most likely not be that awkward person in real life (and they were probably wearing outfits specific to their role).

For those of you who are confused and don't understand what these connections I'm talking about are, just look at arrested development.  Just 3 seasons aired and fans developed such strong connections that for years they've fought and prayed for a movie continuation.  Or look at long series like Friends, Seinfeld, Scrubs, etc.  These series finales are big TV events because viewers don't want to let go of their favourite characters.  They hold onto the connections they've made and then watch re-runs to keep them alive.  YouTube allows viewers to be entertained and create real(istic) connections to the people entertaining them, and that it why so many people subscribe to vlogs.  The same is probably true for reality shows to some people.

One is Not Enough

This sort of continues from my Villain Movie post, which got me thinking about all the upcoming comic-based movies.  I realized that Hollywood may not be as dumb as I took it to be.  Looking at the upcoming superhero movies, it seems as if movies with one hero are no longer satisfying audiences.  X-Men has always been a popular film franchise and the next film, First Class, class may possibly show the stories of more than any of the previous films.  There has been much development of characters for the upcoming Avengers movie (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, et cetera).  I hadn't heard anything for sure, but with Green Lantern out this summer and years of rumors about who will be the next Wonder Woman, I suspected an eventual Justice League movie.  Searching up on this it seems as if that is the actual plan.  The Superman film franchise had died after Superman Returns, prompting the Zack Snyder reboot, and after Spider-Man 3 it has been some time, work and recasting to get the franchise back on its feet.  Fantastic Four (and it's sequel) were released a few years back now and they made their dollars (maybe not all fans were pleased).  Is it at the point were not even four superheroes is good enough for audiences?  Maybe this is just a phase like the LOST and Heroes years of television, where we went from a couple of main characters to countless.  In time we will know if this is for the better, but for now all I can say is that X-Men: First Class looks pretty awesome.  Who cares if our attention span is decreasing and we need more heroes to hold our interest?  I'm still excited!

Villain Movie

There is an abundance of movies and movie franchises with superheroes as central characters.  A large majority of these heroes emerge after some form of tragedy (often a family one).  Bruce Wayne's parents are murdered, Batman is born.  Tony Stark is attacked and held captive, Iron Man is born.  Matt Murdock discovers his father is a mob thug causing him to get in an accident, Daredevil is born.  Peter Parker's Uncle is killed, Spider-man is born.  Britt Reid's father dies, Green Hornet is born.  But in reality don't many children become disobedient, get into drugs and generally misbehave in what ever ways possible after they experience tragedies like a parent's death, divorce, et cetera?  I constantly hear of studies saying that these events can cause kids to become criminals in later life, or other similar concepts.  Then why do these characters fight for justice?  There needs to be more villain movies.  Bruce Wayne's parents die and he kills thugs turning into a full blown serial killer or Tony Stark decides to use his Iron Man suit to way war on the country whose people held him captive.  These plots may make for really dark films, but it gives plenty of opportunity for redemptions or other perspectives.  Obviously no one wants to taint these heroes names, but with all the sequels, remakes and adaptations in Hollywood, some originally can't hurt.  Not wanting to be original and create a villain with his own world and back story is no excuse for not making villain films though.  Why is there not simply a reverse perspective superhero movie?  For example, the Dark Knight shown from Joker's perspective.  Feature Batman as a secondary character and focus on Joker's story and his inner struggles.  That might not be the best example, but eventually people will get tired of going to see sequel upon sequel.  Mix it up once it a while, the number of heroes out there is running low.  Even do some sidekick spin-off films if you have to (I mean, Kato is where all the action is in Green Hornet).  I'm sure people would watch a Robin movie.  He even comes with more developments for future superhero movies (i.e. Nightwing).  Why bore audiences with one hero development film followed by sequels with new enemies when you can progress from normal person to sidekick to superhero?  It's no secret studios love blockbuster franchises, and the more character development, the more sequels, thus more box office winnings.  Nonetheless, I'm still going to watch every one of the superhero movies that come out.

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P.S. it took nearly an hour to type this brief message.

Plants vs. Fish

ZOMBIE FISH!  Just kidding.  This is just a short post about something I noticed.  I don't really understand the reasons for it, but maybe you do.  So while a group of people with me were eating sushi (some of whom had never tried it before) they were discussing related topics.  One person stated that they were fine with sushi, but are more hesitant about eating potentially poisonous fish.  I completely understand that someone might not be gung ho about eating sushi made from poisonous fish.  What I don't get is that people have no issue eating things like a rhubarb pie, but are completely against sushi from poisonous fish.  Some fish are potentially poisonous, but when prepared properly they are safe for consumption.  This is the same with rhubarb.  Rhubarb is potentially poisonous but if prepared properly (i.e. without the leaves) most have no problem with eating it.  Both are poisonous living things that if correctly served are consumable.  So why does the poisonous fish seem more intimidating to eat?  Kinda weird, so for now I'll just stick to eating no sushi at all.

Music and YouTube

Nearly everyone has clicked a link to a video and found that the video was removed or the audio muted, so you should know what I'm talking about.  Record companies, such as WMG, force YouTube to remove videos uploaded with songs by their artists.  Often this is because they have the video posted on their own page and prefer it be viewed there, so they'll get money from YouTube.  There are several things wrong with this.  I have experienced several times where I was looking for a song and the artist doesn't have a YouTube channel or the song isn't posted.  Eventually I find one audio-only copy and there is nothing but thanks in the comments for finally posting that song.  This is great, but more often than not I'm too late and the audio is muted or the video is completely gone.  If these record companies are too lazy to upload a song sought after by so many users, they why are you punishing someone for doing you the favour of uploading it for you?  At least do us the courtesy of uploading the song on your channel, you already know by the millions of views that people want to hear that song.  Do you not want whatever amount of money that would make you on YouTube?

I will agree that the videos that post the song along with a link to a free download had legitimate reasons for being removed.  But I myself was once banned for the one time occurrence of posting songs from a Muse album that had been released.  I had purchased the album on its release day and posted the songs for people to hear who hadn't bought it or in areas that it was still unreleased.  I asked through annotations what people thought of the album and I had my inbox flooded with comments saying they couldn't wait to pick up the album.  These songs were not online at the time and as a fan of the band I was helping to spread their music to the world.  Apparently, record companies hate free advertising and banned my account (even though you supposedly have 3 strikes).  Further to the point of free advertising, once record companies do upload their songs or music videos, most disable embedding.  Okay, so you're completed against someone else uploading a video for you, I can be fine with that.  But now you've uploaded the song and to help share this song and support the artist, hundreds of people would like to embed the video on their blogs, personal websites, profiles on whatever social network, etc.  What reason could you have for this?  Almost every embedded video I watch, I end up following back to the original page on YouTube.  Even if I don't try to do this, the normal clicking the video to pause instead links to the video page.  For greedy companies they are for some unknown reason against others helping them make money.  YouTube needs to put record companies in their place.  Fair use under United States law says it is not infringement to use a works for comment or criticism.  At least all the videos I posted had questions asking what people thought and had discussions in the comments.  I was not making any commercial gains from uploading these videos and only helped increase the potential market value (maybe even only by one album sale).  I don't know what record companies' problem is.  The internet is well established and people already download music, so if they're not going to make there music easily available, everyone will just download it.  Why waste $20 on an album or the few dollars on iTunes for a song when I can download and try the songs risk free?  Turns out the album sucks, just delete it knowing you didn't get suckered into paying money to find that out.

I think I've complained long enough, just search WMG on YouTube.  There is an abundance of video expressing their distaste for the situation out there.

3D Thinking

Besides the technical complaints against 3D, such as whether filming is done in 3D or converted in post production, I think there is one major reason why some people don't enjoy 3D movies.  They say it is a marketing gimmick or fad and yet there are those who see the merit and quality of 3D.  The reason why some people do not appreciate 3D technology is that they think in 2D.  It is a reflex for them to think in 2D, so it should be possible over time to have them gain an appreciation for 3D.

I'm not for or against 3D, I like a good movie in 3D but don't like movies made for the sake of using 3D technology.  When you think about it, it starts to make sense.  Ask people to draw a box and many will draw a square, and often the opposite occurs (people referring to a square as a box).  Recently, I was offered a dessert.  They asked me, "would you like a square?"  These squares were different, some crumbled pastry and some fudge.  But they were not square, they were cubes.  In the same way that Rice Krispie squares are rectangular prisms.  It seems as though our minds have been conditioned to react in 2D.  Some might argue that Rice Krispie cubes don't have "the ring" to it.  But say these were initial branded cubes instead of squares way back in the 1920s at their inception.  After 90 years of calling them cubes, squares would sound out of the ordinary.  I've seen other examples pointed out to people (even myself sometimes), where an object is called a shape but wasn't that shape.  Similar to how many people call tissues Kleenex, thinking in two dimensions has been normal for so long, after a while we don't realize the error in what we say (or think).  The only question left is if the harsh critics of the 3D boom can think in 3D.  Obviously this is difficult to test and James Cameron is the only true 3D thinker who could perform such a study.