Uberman Superhero
Some of you I’ve been applying to scholarships for graduate school. This post is actually for one of my scholarships: TheUberman.com “I AM a superhero” Scholarship. I thought I’d go with something a bit, well, humorous for this. In any case, enjoy: I am Gauisus, the United Nation’s designated superhero. The problem with being like me is that you’re always the butt of someone’s joke. You see, my name means “happy” in Latin, because I can fabricate happiness out of thin air. And I don’t mean the hearty chuckle variety of happiness, or even the hippy, high-as-a-kite kind. I mean the kind of happiness you find in a laughing child: that pure, innocent, and unimaginable sensation forgotten by adulthood, concentrated into a thick, happy syrup and injected straight into the veins. It’s like an adrenaline shot of happiness, but without the side effects. I’ve stopped wars by turning grumpy politicians into crying bundles of hugs and apologies; selfish oil barons, isolationists, and xenophobes have turned into environmentally and socially conscious progressives. Everyone I target has an experience, a moment of clarity in which they begin to realize that things really do need to change. But this is all standard superhero fare. The more interesting stuff occurs at the UN. I’m not welcome there anymore, because the politicians are unable to get riled up, to toss insults or argue relentlessly about things they think are important–distributing happiness like crack to politicians can have that effect. Most of the meetings end in people hugging and some superpower vowing to solve a humanitarian problem–poverty, disease, theft by monkeys, you name it. My ability doesn’t always work, but that’s life. Injecting happiness into people is at least changing the dynamics of the world, creating new generations of people willing to pay attention, rather than stick their heads in the sand. All the hugs and laughter are making people see the world through someone else’s shoes and bring to reality why it doesn’t matter that we’re all different: because we’re all human beings.
The iTunes Meme
(Discovered here) This has been making the rounds, so I thought I would jump in. I don’t have iTunes, so I will be using my Creative Zen Vision:M, since I think the former is an evil piece of hardware placed on this planet to destroy mankind. Here are the rules: 1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle. 2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer. 3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS. 4. Feel free to steal this for your blog (just link to whomever you stole it from). 5. Have Fun! IF SOMEONE SAYS ‘ARE YOU OKAY’ YOU SAY?“The Wardrobe” from The Chronicles of Narnia (apparently gay jokes are in order). HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF“If Baseballs Had AIDS” by David Cross (not kidding). WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?“Voyager” by Immediate Music (I’m sure that’s some sort of metaphor…). HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?“Exhale” by System F (apparently I feel like breathing, which is good). WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?“The Breakdown” by trance[]control (not exactly glorified, now is it?). WHAT’S YOUR MOTTO?“I Don’t Know” by Lostprophets (well that fits). WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?“The Beat Goes On” by trance[]control (that seems fitting). WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?“All of My Life” by Aluna (which also seems fitting, since my mother can’t get rid of me.) WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?“Loose Lips Sink Ships” by A Change of Pace (sounds wrong to me). WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?“Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day (oh man, what a wonderful way to put it). WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?“Prom Night With Melinda” by David Cross (I don’t know what that means). WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?“Hands Up” by Lagoona (yeah…). WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?“Sunrise at Palamos” by M.I.K.E. (not a bad tune for that). WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?“Darkpop” by The Higher (if you can tell me what a Darkpop is, please do). WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?“The Quest” by Immediate Music (well that’s crap; I totally want to go on quests). WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?“Social Suicide” by Carl B (ain’t that the truth). WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?“Waking Up Inside My Own Paralysis” by Funeral For a Friend (apparently that’s what I’m doing instead of this). WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?“Hymn” by Immediate Music (so, I think that they are a religious tune). WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?“Atrophy” by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus (wonderful). Well, there you go. This is sort of hard when you have over 2,000 songs on one little mp3 player, but so be it. Maybe I’ll redo this in the future and only use rock music. Anywho!
AmazonFail: Another Company Being Stupid
It’s apparently been going on for a few weeks, but it’s only just exploded in epic proportions in the blogosphere in the last day or so (as far as I know). What is it? I’ll give you the short version: Amazon essentially changed he way they list books on their best seller’s list, search feature, and the site in general, by removing sales information (specifically ranks) from books deemed to be “adult.” They apparently wanted to make it so “adult” books could not end up on the best seller’s list (and other reasons, I’m sure). Only, Amazon has seemingly gone off the deep end by removing sales ranks from a heck of a lot of books that are not only not adult at all (at least not compared to the stuff they’ve been letting through, such as American Psycho), but happen to have LGBT (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) themes or characters (a good example of how stupid this is can be found here, where a non-fiction book was cut off, while a violent, bloody fiction book was not). So, Twitter and the blogosphere (and all sorts of online news agencies) are throwing a fit over this, and rightly so (one fellow has even written an open letter to Amazon about the whole ordeal). Yes, there are a lot of links in that sentence–to highlight the enormity of this, I assure you. Amazon has apparently blamed this on a glitch in the system, but most are calling B.S. on that, and rightly so. I was shocked when I first heard about it this morning. I don’t know if this whole ordeal was done with any malicious intent; it probably wasn’t. Maybe it was a glitch after all, but you’d think a company as big and influential as Amazon would have tested this thing before implementing it, or at least took the notices sent to them by angry customers seriously when this all began. I’m going to keep this post short primarily because it seems like Amazon is going to fix the problem. If things don’t improve, I think we can all begin to speculate on why Amazon is pandering to the whims of the religious right. Right now, it doesn’t seem like there is much more to say other than pointing to the rants and angry posts of others. Am I upset by this? Yes, actually. Amazon better get its act together soon or they could end up with a hell storm on their doorstep. We’ll see what happens in the next week. Anyone out there have any thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment!
Red Dwarf: Back to Earth
WARNING: Huge spoiler alerts and ranting ahead. I was nervously awaiting RD:BTE. I wanted it to be great but expected it to be shocking. Then I saw the adverts and thought it’d be even worse than that. Then I watched the first episode, and thought maybe it was okay. Then I watched the second and refused to watch the third. Luckily, my friend convinced me to give it another shot, and I watched the whole thing back-to-back and it (almost) worked. But then again, it almost completely failed too. Here’s why. 1. Audiences were initially shocked at the crew. Where were Kochanski and Holly? Why was Rimmer a hologram again? Kochanski and Holly’s absences were explained, and became explicitly clear by the end of the mini-series, so I got over that. Also, it’s understandable why Rimmer was a hologram. He was the only crew member stuck on the decaying ship in the original reality at the end of series eight. Everyone else had crossed into the mirror universe. It’s feasible to imagine Rimmer died with the crew, although it doesn’t explain how he became hardlight (the hardlight drive was developed after Red Dwarf was built and left the solar system) or has memories of the events the previous hologrammatic Arnold Rimmer had (unless, somehow, Holly has updated his memory and personality files based on the logs of Red Dwarf and Starbug from the past few years). 2. Pace. Put simply, in part one there was none. As an episode, it felt entirely like build-up for something else. There were a few good jokes, but they were too sparse, and the CGI sets were too obtrusive. But I hate CGI in general, because I believe it lacks the fullness, body and texture of models and physical structures. Indeed, the whole thing feels like a movie chopped into three parts, because the pacing is slow and the narrative wallows and wanders a bit. It never feels it’s going anywhere or is in any rush to do so, until the last 15 mins of episode three. 3. Episode 2. This was scary stuff on first viewing. ‘What, the whole of Red Dwarf was a *fucking* dream?’ (Well, actually, it was a TV series, and the characters have escaped the TV programme to enter the real world.) This was the same metafictional plot of The League of Gentlemen, and it didn’t work for that franchise either. Luckily, episode three redeems the series, but you’d be forgiven for switching off in a rage. I was so appalled I wanted to cry. 4. Coronation Street. When Lister arrives on Coronation Street (which actor Craig Charles currently appears in), I groaned. This was the worst kind of cross-merchandising, self-referential bullshit I could think of, I thought. I cringed and winced and wanted to die. But my friend had spoiled the ending (thankfully), so I could take a deep breath and watch it, knowing it would soon be over. What saved the entired trio of episodes was the last half of episode three. We discover, thankfully, that this is a reworking of Back to Reality. We should’ve guessed from the title and the squid, right? But apparently we didn’t (not all of us, or at least, not right away). It makes sense, though, since Back to Reality was voted fans’ favourite ever episode. And here’s the big spoiler: the squid was a female despair squid (a ‘joy’ squid), whose own ink is the opposite of the male’s. Instead of inspiring despair, it creates joyous hallucinations where all the dreamer’s desires come true. So in this world Kochanski is still with us and even when Lister realises he’s in a hallucination, he initially decides to die with Kochanski in the dreamworld. It’s only when he realises Kochanski is still alive, and Kryten staged her death to hide the fact she dumped him, that he eventually decides he can win the real Kochanski back and leaves the dream world. Apparently, all four of the heroes have an immunity to the ink from their previous encounter with the squid, which allows them a degree of agency and awareness in the dream, and thus the ability to wake up. Of course, for Rimmer to have this immunity, Holly was either a very clever computer, who altered Rimmer’s hardlight ‘biology’ to account for his experiences, or he’s the same Rimmer who left to become Ace in ‘Stoke Me a Clipper’. The Blade Runner references were nice but blatant, although far preferable to the Coronation Street ones and the scenes where Lister and co find their own Red Dward TV show DVDs. The dialogue was less infantile than series eight, though not as sharp as series six (perhaps more like series seven). The special effects were neither here or nor there. So overall it wasn’t too bad. Two thirds of it were annoying at first, but the final revelation is interesting, if not original. Especially when Kryten reveals that the reality of their hallucination has, because of multiverse theory, become real. Effectively there is a new universe where people believe Red Dwarf is a TV show, which is actually not quite real itself (i.e., our world is born of their hallucination and theirs is the ‘real’ world). This salvages some of the more awkward moments, and the gags soften the blow somewhat along the way. Obviously, it’s a far cry from the excellent comedy of previous series, and continues the tread into comedy drama over sit com territory, but it’s not as bad as I initially thought. Furthermore, it does show promise that Doug Naylor has some really great plot twists in his head, albeit ones that rely on hackneyed stories in the first place. I would have preferred something more daring, but whatever. A mixed bag, but worth a watch when it comes out on DVD (most likely in an unedited film-length version, which would be much better).
Science Fiction For Non-Readers?
This is one of those questions that has me really stumped. I know there have been posts on the net about this subject, but I can’t say whether it has ever been answered. Often times when this question is asked science fiction fans blurt out a load of typical names and novels; rarely are these suggestions actually good ones (primarily because they’re good suggestions for folks interested in expanding their horizons in the genre rather than for folks who have never liked the genre in the first place). In thinking about this, I think it’s fair to say that non-readers fall into two categories: Literary ReadersFolks who primarily read literary fiction or have particularly sophisticated tastes as far as literature is concerned. This group tends to hold general disdain for literature that focuses on plot rather than characters or style (and specifically all genre fiction and popular literary forms). Popular Fiction ReadersThink anyone who reads the stuff on the best seller’s list, but who have avoided science fiction or fantasy for whatever reason. Sometimes these sorts of readers have little book clubs and what not where they discuss Dan Brown and other such authors. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to get the second group to read SF. They’ve probably already read a handful of SF books and don’t realize it. Popular fiction readers often read folks like Stephen King or Dean Koontz or Michael Crichton (the latter two have written a bunch of SF novels). If they only read romance novels, it’s not that much of a stretch to lead them to paranormal/SF romance or particularly romance-based SF tales. The first group, however, is the hard one. How do we get people who literally believe that science fiction is trash to read it? Do we point them to Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke? This is the problem. When we start making suggestions for non-readers, we often point to classic SF or even popular SF as if the popularity of the title will actually matter. But most of the titles we automatically suggest are not going to get these folks to read SF. Period. It will only serve to reinforce the idea that SF is trash. This isn’t because SF is actually trash; it’s because this particular group of readers considers considers SF to be so. So what do we do? How do we get these folks to even consider SF? Do we point to 1984 and Margaret Atwood? What other books are there other than those in the canon (which isn’t that many books anyway)? I don’t know. I don’t think there is an easy way through to this group; there are only a handful of books that they’d willingly read (and probably already have), and SF is not exactly rich with stylistically aware prose (in the sense that popular-styles are replaced with more complicated ones). Do any of you have suggestions? How would you get through to this group? Can we get through to this group, or is it hopeless?
A Fun Fantasy Quiz
(Found over at Fantasy Book Reviews) 1) Lord of the Rings: Movies or books?In all honesty, I prefer the movies. I respect the books for what they are, but I hate reading them. The movies managed to take an exceedingly dull story and bring it to life. I’ll always take the movies over the books. 2) Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms?Dragonlance. I never got into the Forgotten Realms stuff. 3) Online bookstores or physical (local) bookstores?Depends on the situation. If I’m buying books for school, I’ll use Amazon. If I’m buying books for myself, I prefer physical stores because I get to actually touch the books and see them in real life. You can learn a lot about a book by actually touching it with your fingers (or smelling it). 4) Hardcover or paperback?This depends too. I prefer hardback to trade paperback, primarily because the latter has a tendency to end up bent or in shoddy shape. But I prefer mass market paperback to hardback because I can get three mass markets for the price of one hardback. Seems logical, right? 5) Secondary World or Real World?Hmm. Now this is a hard one. I don’t think I can properly answer this. Are science fiction worlds representative of the real world? Or are they secondary? Or neither? If neither, then I’d have to say I prefer secondary worlds, even though I do happen to enjoy a lot of contemporary fantasy that takes place in our own world. If the real world is meant to be science fiction, then I prefer that to the other. It’s a bit of a dilemma. Well, there you go! Feel free to answer the questions in the comments or turn this into a meme and write a blog post!