Tag Archives: rant

There is such a thing as bittersweet, not just bitter and not just sweet.

Had an interesting difference of opinion. first, a breakdown for those folks that have never read the story.

The Velveteen Rabbit

One Christmas day a young boy was given a brown and white spotted velveteen rabbit with pink sateen ears. The rabbit was forgotten for awhile, but when the boy rediscovered him, the rabbit and boy became inseparable. Fancier toys teased the Velveteen Rabbit because he was only made of velveteen and stuffed with old sawdust. However, his friend, the wise Skin Horse, told him about Nursery Magic that would make him real if he was loved by a child and gave love in return.
As time went on the Velveteen Rabbit’s beautiful fur became shabby, his tail began to come apart and all the pink came off his nose where the boy kissed him. One day the boy told his Nana that the rabbit was real. The rabbit was so happy to be real that he never noticed his appearance and his eyes shown with a look of wisdom and beauty. He told some wild rabbits that he was real, but they teased him and made him sad.

Then the boy became ill and the rabbit stayed by his side. When the boy was well, the doctor ordered that all the toys be burned because of germs. The rabbit was sad and a tear trickled down his nose to the ground. Where the tear fell, a flower grew. The blossom opened and out stepped the lovely Fairy of Nursery Magic, who takes all the old, loved and worn out playthings that children no longer need and makes them real. The rabbit had only been real to the boy. The fairy took him in her arms and flew him to a place in the woods where there were other rabbits. She kissed him and told him to run and play. The Velveteen Rabbit became a real, live rabbit.

Ok… that’s the gist of the tale, less many the beautiful words and images that it contains. I reccomend it as part of a childs bookshelf, and it has a special meaning to me.

Another LJer I was talking to elsewhere said “I can’t believe that we subject children to depressing stories like that.

I personally think it’s a wonderful tale about love and the growing that comes from being loved. (see the sonnet, previous, too.) There are some sad parts, like when the boy is separated from something he loves so much, but overall, it’s a marvellous tale, and memory from my childhood.

Somehow the person I was conversing with it about totally missed the point… I feel that children benefit more if shown in a soft way some of the way life works ahead of time, they adjust better than if they get fed the mostly pointless “Barney the dinosaur, no drama ever happens” school of storytelling. It’s a question of taste, and position, I guess. In any event, I’m not going to bother pointing my world view at him anymore as he’s too traumatized by the story to hear it.

His sort of thinking has been a mild irritant to me… his opinion in general doesn’t matter, but when it becomes that of the majority, and will affect how I ultimately raise a child… then I begin to be disturbed by it. I credit some of my common sense and ability to reason to being subjected to a good mix of reality as a kid, not just the “everything is rainbows and cherubs” idea that’s currently in vogue. You don’t have to tell the story of “How Little Billy lost his legs to an Axe Murderer” either.

A balance can be struck. Fairies can be about granting wishes, playing tricks or warning of a coming tragedy. Besides, a story without some conflict makes it look like the hero got off too easy.

Waving the flag.

If you don’t like it in the US… and you currently live here, here’s another freedom open to you.

Leave. Hit the fricking road. Take a bite of a reality sandwich. See what life is like elsewhere.

Go Live in China for a year, see how wonderful life is there. Go to Afghanistan, and tell them you’re an American, and see how well you get by telling them that you renounce our ways. Heck, spend some time in Germany or England, and try to get ahold of some of the “wrong” kind of literature.

I celebrate your freedom to an opinion, though I may deplore your ignorance and willful stupidity. I’d appreciate it if you thought before you started bitching about the way things are here. Vote, gather a petition, organize peaceably. If you have a problem, you can write your congressman, your local newspaper. Lay out exactly what your problems are, find folks of a similar mind, and do something about it.

Seriously. If you have a problem with the way things are here, at least you can make a difference. For such a young country, I think we’ve on the whole done a lot more good than bad. I think we’ve contributed far more positively than negatively to culture, society, technology and medicine than any other country on the planet for the last 200 years. This place is still a land of innovation and exceptional tolerance, especially compared to the entirety of the globe.

US life is probably some of the highest quality of life you can find, and that’s coming from someone who’s been homeless. There are problems with every system, but I feel that the one we have in place now is the best available. With the help of my nation and her citizens, I’m able to eat, sleep indoors, in a bed, love who I choose, travel freely, buy whatever books I like, work at a competitive wage, and help folks that don’t have it so well to get back on their feet.

Tell me that you think we deserve most of the hate that we get, because of the country we live in… well… I’m sorry, but you’re a fucking idiot.

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often, the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as ’empty’ or ‘meaningless’, or ‘dishonest’ and scorn the use of them. No matter how ‘pure’ their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.

Wow… that last entry was really negative. I’ve since removed it form the role players community, but I’m keeping it here, for personal reference.

Let me say… I do like to game, and the majority of folks I’ve gamed with haven’t fallen into the irritating/weirdo categories prior. There are a lot of perfectly sane, grounded, friendly and clean folks that don’t dress up like Dracula all the time that like to get together and play.

But… there’s one person in every crowd… Sometimes I wonder what ‘one in every crowd’ role I fill. I think it depends on the crowd. Depending on said crowd, I become the designated-

Asexual Older Brother/Crying Shoulder… Heck.. for a time (and to some folks still) I’m of that persona here.

Hippie – See above

Voice of Reason – *snort-laugh*… Oh, man..

Tech Reference Guide – Usually by folks with *no* computer knowledge.

Trivia Reference Guide – I do know a lot of weirdo stuff. Feel free to ask me anything about Zeppelins, World War One, Comic Books or Primate Psychology

Babysitter (I like this gig.. one I haven’t had in a while. “Scotto! I was wondering if you’d like to come over for dinner, and have a pile of fun playing candyland or reading a story to kids who love you to death?” Heck… that just rocks)

thoughts about gaming

There are some things I *do not* miss about gaming.

Gamers, as a whole, can be a loathsome lot. (Much like the rest of humanity, you might say….if you’re a cynic…) First off, I’m not a ‘serious’ gamer. I see it as an excuse to get together with folks of a like mind, and over junk food and good times, tell a good story, and maybe stage a little combat on a hex-map, involving miniatures and a nifty prop or two. I can comfortably skip a week of gaming, and go to a movie, play cards or do some other social thing instead. I’m not hard-core.

That said, let me break down ‘the gamers that bug me’.

1. They wrecked Monty Python for me. (And almost, the princess bride) Pure and simple. I’d never seen holy grail. I’d heard every pesky, probably originally witty line of the film a dozen dozen (that’s 144 for you counting at home. a gross) times before ever seeing it on film. the result? Something that’s supposedly very funny is reflected on by me as passable, but no great shakes. Honestly, I think Life of Brian is a far better film.

2. There’s no question that there’s a sort of “dork aura” that surrounds some gamers and turns them into spasming little social retards. We’ve all had the occasional discussion about why this is, exactly, and what causes it. I don’t think you can fully codify it, though. It’s more like there’s a whole bunch of different personality traits, no single one of which is necessarily offensive on its own, but in certain combinations they cause this regression into infantilism.

3. Personal hygiene. Bathe Regularly, please?

Memories of con folk –
I run into my first Smelly in the dealers’ room today. He lumbers around the corner as I’m passing the WotC castle – morbidly obese, covered with a slick of sweat, an expression on his face like he’s just suffered a massive head injury and is now watching the great unknown come to him out of the lighted tunnel. One second after I pass him, his wake hits me, and I literally retch. Right there in the middle of a crowd of people, I lean against the wall and make a horrible face. It was embarrassing but completely unintentional – I just couldn’t help it.

Poor hygiene is the perennial Con joke, of course – How do you get a bunch of gamers to agree on something? Threaten them with soap. But actually I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the nonodorous nature of the crowds. This guy made up for all I’d missed. Someone like that can’t be explained away by mere social ineptitude; I would not be surprised to learn that Mr. Stinky is to some degree or another mentally ill. You just can’t get like that without some fundamental disconnect between yourself and the rest of the world. I’ve hung out with homeless people who smelled better than that.

I’ve gamed with some folk that really had a sickening funk about them. it was so bad, I used it as a valid reason to quit, and later, to check to see if I was to enter a new group… If I can smell a person’s reek, I’d just as soon go home and read a nice book inside my own fragrance, thanks.

4. Rules Lawyers. I don’t mean people who can quote rules from the air, or take time to look ’em up. Those folks are generally very helpful. I’m referring to folks that dance and debate around a rule-set to make an event go their way. (and usually go another way in a similar situation for the enemy). That’s not fun, that’s just annoying.

5. Folks who take the whole thing Waaaaay too seriously. I’ve had players in my group *Flip out*upon finding out that someone else’s character had died.

Ok, Time out. another description for Role-playing games is ‘cooperative storytelling’. It’s a story. That’s it. I can understand enjoying a role… but come on. Do you threaten breakdown when a character in your favorite book dies? It’s a valid plot point… see Romeo & juliet, or countless other tales of folks dying heroically or romantically. This is a game. The weirdest thing to me about this is they often also fall into a very strong reality haze. see the following.

6. (almost 5b) Folks who Identify maybe a little *too* much with the role. Ok, Now some folks are method actors. I’m not. These are the folks that allow personal reality to slip focus, to varying degrees of badness.

Example – If you’re a graceless, nonathletic fumblethumbs afraid of butterflies… (gosh, I’m glad she doesn’t read this journal), it’s perfectly natural to want to play a pantherlike, limber, master thief and assassin (as another side note… why do girls *love* to play master thieves and assassins so much? Dang!) Coming to the game dressed as the part… well, for me, since it’s not a larp, I think it’s interesting, but a little weird. Same person plays the same sort of character for a long time in assorted games….and starts buying her own presskit. No… I’m sorry, young lady. (At the time, I think she was 33? Well older than my 27) . You’re not a ninja/master of sorcery/acrobat. you play one in a game. Bragging that you can fade into another reality space doesn’t make you cool… it makes you at the least… Comical. at the worst, delusional.

even my buddy Dan is not exempt from this… although I prefer to hope that he did it as a joke rather than something else… Crossing the street holding his arms up to stop cars, and exclaiming “Nothing an stop MAN OF IRON!!!” Always gave me the heebie-geebies. I rarely chastised him for it at the time, because the once or twice that I did seemed to amuse him, and egg him on more. (I know he reads my journal here sometimes…I wonder what he’ll say to me about my bringing it up )

What do you folks think? What do you especially like/dislike about gaming? Can someone explain to me why the reality and socially impaired gravitate to the hobby, and cause so much bad press and bad playtime for the rest of us?

Wisdom of Robert Anton Wilson revisited.

The Constitution admittedly has a few defects and blemishes, but it still seems a hell of a lot better than the system we have now.

The courts apply all criminal laws in this nation in a mild, rational and humane manner, if the defendant is rich.

The philosopher Carlin’s three major types of public nuisances — the stupid, the crazy and those just plain full of shit — have changed proportions in my mind as I grow older. I used to attribute almost everything awful to stupidity and looniness, but now I more and more suspect the major problem is that so many people are full of shit. In fact, every time I see a man on TV wearing a suit and tie, I suspect he is full of shit, and if he has a flag hanging beside him I am almost sure of it. If I turn the sound on — I usually do my dial surfing with the mute on — it almost always appears that my guess was right. Those men usually are full of shit, especially the ones with the US flag behind them. They all seem to come from the State Department, too.

net lies.

I think it’s kind of funny that some folks take what they hear without researching it, and automatically assign truth to it. (I’m not pointing fingers, as I have fallen victim to a few hoaxes in my own time… only after looking it up to prove I was right, did I realise… well… no, that email someone sent me was not true, and Abe Vigoda isn’t dead…. or whatever.)

Here’s one that I’ve gotten probably 50 times, and it is patently untrue. It’s so ridiculous, that well, it almost sounds like it would be legit.

***snip***

This is Very Disturbing – This was sent to me so I’m just sharing the information.

KFC has been a part of our American traditions for many years. Many people, day in and day out, eat at KFC religiously. Do they really know what they are eating? During a recent study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire, they found some very upsetting facts.

First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently, the company has changed their name? Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the “FRIED” food issue. It’s not. The reason why they call it KFC is because they can not use the word chicken anymore. Why? KFC does not use real chickens.

They actually use genetically manipulated organisms. These so called “chickens” are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet.

The government has told them to change all of their menus so they do not say chicken anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this. Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will not see or hear the word chicken. I find this matter to be very disturbing. I hope people will start to realize this and let other people know.

Please forward this message to as many people as you can. Together we make KFC start using real chicken again.

** end snip.

It has all the hallmarks of a hoax… the evil corporate conspiracy, the authoritative sounding reference to a university study and, of course, the plea for grassroots action by forwarding “this message to as many people as you can.” It plays on the concerns that have been raised over genetically altered produce and from a theoretical standpoint is almost plausible. However, that is a very big “almost.” Two things about this hoax jumped out at me immediately as I read it for the first time. The first was that if the University of New Hampshire had really done a study such as this I wouldn’t be hearing about it for the first time in a forwarded e-mail… it would have made the front page of the newspaper and CNN’s Headline News. This is true of many hoaxes, if they were real the media would jump all over them. That alone convinced me this was a hoax, but then when it went on to say “I guarantee you will not see or hear the word chicken” in KFC’s advertising I thought “then what’s that stuff they keep saying they do right?” One thing is for sure, the person who wrote this doesn’t do rumors right… it fell apart from the start. However, as far as rumors go, it was amusing. Had the author implicated McDonalds’ burgers I may have been inclined to believe it. *g*

Campbell’s Bows Out. . . Many Lives Are Saved.

First off, Campbell’s, I hate you. You had it all going for you with your fancy-schmancy soups and all, but you just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? No, you had to go and put ramen noodles on the market. Well, I guess the consumers got the last word on this slap-in-the-face, didn’t they, you dopes. Yes, dear readers, Campbell’s ramen noodles have been discontinued. . . and no one even noticed. Let me give you a little rundown on why this ingenious marketing idea burned to the ground. . .

Right off, it is important to understand that every college kid, every bachelor, every single bachelorette on the face of this planet eats ramen noodles for one reason and one reason only: they are cheap as hell. You can buy FOUR packages of ramen noodles for under a buck, and whether you like the taste or not, you damn well learn to relish their merciful existence because when you have four dollars left for the rest of the week, ramen noodles quickly become the thin line between life and starvation. Campbell’s, for some odd reason, thought that people were buying the dehydrated slivers of starch and packets of colored salt because they just couldn’t get enough of that beefy, chickeny, “oriental” delicacy that seemed to be sweeping the nation. No, Campbell’s, we were broke!

So why am I so mad that they decided to partake in the thriving ramen industry? Because they charged about FIFTY CENTS a pack. That’s over TWICE what the regular ramens cost, which insults my intelligence and offends me as a consumer. Sure, the people at Campbell’s would like to have you believe that they charge more because they make “better” ramen noodles than the other companies, but anyone who has ever eaten a single ramen noodle can tell you that THEY ALL TASTE EXACTLY THE SAME! Even if they were better, we still wouldn’t buy them for one simple reason: you pay twice as much for half the product. People don’t buy ramen noodles for the quality of the product. . . they buy them so they don’t get hospitalized for malnutrition. Even if we had the extra fifty cents to “upgrade” or ramen quality, we wouldn’t spend it like that. . . we would simply climb to the next rung on the ladder of single-people food: macaroni and cheese.

Let’s face it, Campbell’s, when’s the last time any of your executives went to an expensive company dinner and ordered ramen noodles. . . on purpose? When was the last time one of your rich-ass friends invited you over for dinner and this happened:

“Bob, you ought to bring over the wife and kids for dinner tonight.”

“Sorry, Biff, I have lots of work this evening.”

“Are you sure? We’re breaking out the ramen noodles. . . ”

“Really? Is it someone’s birthday?”

What? That’s never happened to you? You know why? Because you aren’t poor. Do you want to know why other ramen companies are still thriving and you had to discontinue yours? This is why:
Because other companies tell it like it is. Smack Ramen. This stuff is “smack” for poor people. They don’t try to flower it up or make it look all gourmet. Sure, they tried to make it look a little too pretty on the package, but not only does theirs cost eighteen cents a package, they named their entire company “Smack”. Because if you have to rely on ramen noodles as your chief source of nutrition, you probably look like a junkie, and Smack sure as hell isn’t going to act like they don’t know. Thank you, Smack, for looking our handicap right in the face and not pretending like it doesn’t exist.

And Campbell’s I only have one thing left to say to you: “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

Minor rant.

No one ever says, “I want to be a junky when I grow up.” And no one ever says, “I want to be a communistic politician when I grow up and make laws regulating people’s lifestyles.” And if you don’t think we have those, ask one of your gay friends if he’s married. You do know we as the people paid someone to make sure that couldn’t happen, right? I think it’s money well spent. Just think of all the gay marriage related deaths that have been prevented by those laws. Hell, it was getting as bad as all those marijuana related homicides. I guess I wasn’t around during prohibition, but I thought the lesson we learned from that sitcom of a decade was, “Don’t make laws nobody wants to follow and you can’t enforce anyway.” I’m not even really into drugs, but if I ever had the urge to go lick a toad to see colors, that shouldn’t really bug anyone. But I think I’m different from the lawmakers in this country. I have thumbs.

In an unrelated story, this baby can dig holes at an incredible rate and is destined to lead us to an underground utopia and a new age of enlightenment. Perhaps that’s why he is known to the children as Ultrababy X.