And in the interests of fairness...

My Top 25 SEGA Genesis Games

You'd think we'd have learned by now
(or Look, I'm No Artist Here, But....)

Apparently, some people still feel the need to define rigourously what is and what is not a blog, failing to recognize that what normal people consider blogging is far beyond the borders of any slender definition they could concoct. This post is not about them.

Apparently, there are chumps alive and well who wish to place the same narrow definitions upon vidblogs. Oh, I realize that they believe they do good - but as Alexander Hamilton once said, "The road to British rule is paved with good intentions." And the last thing we want is rule by a bunch of socialists.

What? You say we've had socialists in the White House since the '30s? Hm, well, I guess we have nothing to fear from the British....

SO. This evening, I ran across this entry in a vidblog wiki that propsed to define vidblogs. Here is the author's manifesto describing of what a vidblog consists:

1. No editing. Editing takes too long. Selection is the only editing allowed.
2. Tiny movies are moments. Long movies will kill my bandwidth, so tiny movies are a must.
3. Quantity over quality. It's blogging after all. Post as you think. Unfinished pieces.
4. Movieblogs are conversations. The strenght [sic] of videoblogging is that you create an audience.

So who knew that after 31 vidblogs, only my early efforts could potentially be considered vidblogs. After all, most of my later efforts involve edits and in several cases, hours of production work. As if test blogs don't ever or even often undergo self-conscious editing.

And quantity over quality? There goes the web, huh? What? Oh, there's already mounds and piles of cyber-dross out there? Well, I guess this guy's only trying to maintain the status quo then. Carry on, sir. Pile more and more thoughtless, spontaneous blah into our cable modems. And here I thought conscientious people were trying to improve the quality of the web - trying to rescue it from a fate of Dirt Mall consequence.

And the thing about vidblogs being conversations just loses me entirely. I hate it when people pontificate about how great or utopian these things are. "Blogging is personal interaction with a global community." "Christian blogging is the newest avenue of ministry." "Vidblogs are conversations with an audience." Humbug. Balderdash. Hooey.

True, blogging or vidblogging may accomplish some of these things but it may not as well, and it Certainly doesn't have to - and we are fools if we claim it should. What I put in my vidblogs or in my text blogs doesn't have to relate remotely to the kind of content you wish to put in yours. That doesn't make yours less a blog than mine. Just because somebody decides to make a blog devoted solely to political issues and punditry doesn't make his blog less a blog simply because its stupid and boring (as all such blogs must by definition be). And just because I don't make videos in the way that certain vidblog elitists want me to, doesn't make my vidblogs any less a true vidblog.

*sigh* I don't know why I let the snackers get to me, but when I started vidblogging about a year ago, I had never heard of it before. I coined the term for my site's video content unaware that others had coined it before I had. And essentially, the vidblog is just another kind of post on my site. I have an eclectic range of genre alive and well on my blog from political rant to theological consideration to satire to narrative to nonsense to conversation to presentation of doodles to journaling to my favourite mainstay, belittling readers. Vidblogging is just a further extension of genre. But for my vids, in which I've invested significant time and care, to be denigrated by pomposity for not meeting an arbitrary criterion... well, it just pisses me off.

I don't care if you guys make fun of my vids for their stupid accents and the fact that I basically make a knucklehead of myself once a week. But you guys are dissing me for what counts - me being stupid. Your critique will always matter a thousand times more than those of elitist floozies with an inability to communicate on a popular level. Why? because at least you are judging content as content, rather than judging it for context.

And in conclusion, blah.

Vidblog #31: Welcome to Season 2

Yessir, the new Fall season begins today. So get out your flannelgraphs and lampshades 'cuz we're rarin' to go.

A couple weeks ago I stopped by the house of my grandma who passed away a couple years ago. The house is being sold and so my dad, who is expatriated, asked me to stop by and collect a few important heirlooms and whatnots. Some of what I rescued from imminent garage sailors were several old painting my dad brushed in the Eighties. Ever the artist, he tried his hand at Chinese brush painting for a time and to my eye, he became quite accomplished.

Below is a sample of his work - and the above is his illustrious signature. The funny thing is hat when I was young always sort of took his talent for granted. I knew he was an artist, but it never seemed amazing. It always seemed, I dunno, as it should be. It's not that I denigrated his work or thought him in any way average; it's just that I never knew a time when he wasn't this excellent creator. I was so surrounded by that creativity that I failed to realize how rare and special that is. It wasn't 'til my twenties that I began to realize and be wowed. So consider this a very very slight tribute to an amazing body of work.

My Top 30 NES Games

At one of the site's I help administer, the Blue Letter Bible, we get a large number of emailed questions every month. Some are intelligent questions. Some are angry complaints. Some are people like Valerie who are addicted to prrofreading. Others are just flat-out bizarre. One received today lies in the realm of deep and honest concern. A user wanted to alert us to the presence of pr0nography on the site. For hot, steaming Bible pr0n, click here.

Really, though. I'm curious for your opinion. Does this count as pr0n? Am I just jaded and careless? Should believer's be offended? Could anyone really be aroused by such bad art?

So, my esteemed reader/viewers, you may be wondering why the inestimably beautiful and magically delicious Jett Superior is STILL without a website. Well, I’ll tell you And yes, this tale does indeed involve Space Midgets and the Mighty Lobster.

It all began some time ago when the lovely Mrs. Superior was convinced by her inestimably rugged husband, Lake Superior, that her website would just not cut it as it was AND that it need more spice, more pizzaz, more Michelle Kwan (and I think you know what I’m talking about).

So, as fate would have it, our errant heroine dismantled her site, contracted the aid of a fellow heroine – one of the XX Chromosome – and posted a message assuring a speedy recovery.

Alas, thence came the midgets. Space midgets, in fact.

With bullwhips and broomstick ponies, they descended upon the poor soul like vultures. Vultures armed with helium guns. Clearly, she of the XX Chromosome was no match for such unbridled fervor and gas.

With she of the XX Chromosome rendered unfit for further use, our favourite longshoreman had to look elsewhere for aid. Unfortunately for her site, Jett sat largely unaware of the tangled-yet-zesty skein of fate. Even as Jett plotted to revive her miscreant site, destiny planned otherwise.

In her haste, Jett acquired the services of the steady, reliable, and quick-working The Dane. Known primarily for the speed with which he builds sites for those in need, she knew she was in good hands. Unbeknownst to Jett, however, was that though she might feel secure in these Danish hands, The Dane himself was mere marionette to hands that play themselves a far greater puppet show.

I refer to, of course, that Mightiest of Lobsters: fate.

Unheralded, fate’s mighty red, rubberbanded claw reached out and nudged Danish circumstance into an ever-steepening spiral towards madness. But let’s not talk about that. Let’s not talk about the several bouts with cholera The Dane fought through. Let’s not talk about the cancer that attacked The Dane’s pineal gland. Let’s not talk about his shocking loss against sure odds in Lower Oakland Roller Derby. Let’s not talk about the neglect of alimony, about the skipping of child support payments, about the unreturned calls to defense lawyers, about the screening of phone calls for the fear of old wives and girlfriends. Let’s not talk about Cheryl. Or Sera. Or Raymond. Or any of The Dane’s other failures at social engagement. And above all, let’s not talk about that thing with the university and the plagiarism charges.

Mostly we won’t talk about that stuff ‘cuz it never happened. But Jett doesn’t need to know that. If she even believes half the excuses I’ve given her, she won’t really be that mad that it’s taken me this long to put her new site together for her. And if she does get mad… well, then that girl has a poke in the eye coming, because let’s be honest here: I am no gentleman.

In any case, never having been one to kneel to Lobster Fate’s Monstrous Claw, I present you the ever-tardy-to-parties-which-one-might-reasonably-expect-punctuality website of She of the Mighty Right Cross, Jett Superior (a.k.a. Stud).

[p.s., you ought to know by now, but Jett's site and content may be offensive to some audiences and is not appropriate for younger viewers - and Jett, if this last bit doesn't capture the attention of the youth market, you can have your money back.]

James Berardinelli's case for Why Episode One Wasn't Quite the Stinkburger the Everybody Claimed It to Be is, I think, pretty solid. While I never believed The Phantom Menace to be genius, I never thought it to be a bad film either. In fact, I tend to think it was a better film than Return of the Jedi (with the exception of the whole Sarlaac/sandbarge bit, which for my money is right up there with the best Star Wars has to offer). Really, if you think about it, most people's complaints can be applied to the entire series. Poor acting? Mark Hamill, anyone? Poor scripting? How 'bout anything said by Yoda? Too cartoony? What about the ewoks, any interaction between R2-D2 and C3PO, and Luke in the cantina? And honestly, how is Jar-Jar Binks any worse than the Wicket?

I've also heard geeks whining about midochlorians and I still can't figure out why. I may be wrong but I don't think it was ever insinuated in the movies that the jedi derived their sensitivity to the Force as a result of midochlorian action, but rather, it seemed to me that the midochlorians were sensitive to focal points of the Force and so would congregate in those in whom "the Force was strong." But even so, what if the midochlorians were the source of the Force, what if they conceived Anakin? How is that any sillier than the idea of the Force itself?

Really, the cheesiness is part of the fun when it comes to Star Wars. Episode One was no Empire for sure, but to demonize it for not being the best of the bunch seems a trifle silly - like blaming Aliens for not being Citizen Kane.

Just as Valerosity has noted certain trends in the quantity of her readership via her last month's webstats, so too have I. It seems that while traffic certain lessens, I get traffic spikes and lulls regardless of whether I post or not.

For example, you'll note that on the 17th of June, when I wasn't posting, I experienced a noticeable spike in traffic. Similarly, the 3rd of June was a high traffic day - a high traffic day that I did not post on. Additionally, it looks as if Saturdays and Sundays mark day when people like to take breaks from not reading posts that I haven't written. Yay!

Among that group of things that could be accurately called, "My Favourite Things to Do to Calendars," there stands alone one great and wonderful thing that can be accruately called, "My Favourite Thing to Do to Calendars." Really, I just like adding word balloons to the pictures to add context to the scene that is playing out before us over the course of the month. Here is this month's effort, straight outta Compton, yo.

And just in case you had trouble reading the text, it says the following:

CUTE ASIAN GIRL

oh no... That cute Jim Thompson will be here any minute!

do I still have flowers in my teeth?

WHITE IMPERIALIST SWINE

no... no flowers... just the celery

CUTE ASIAN GIRL

sweet!

Political cartoonist Ted Rall holds one of the most interesting, and honest, perspectives on abortion I’ve ever heard:

The assertion that I'm "anti-abortion" is incorrect. My stance on abortion is nuanced; I'm 100% pro-choice while acknowledging that life begins at conception. I believe that women have the right to murder their unborn babies, in other words, and that it's a right that should be used as sparingly as possible.

Really, the view is no different in practice than the standard pro-choice perspective, but it’s more brazen in that most pro-choicers, hide from the fact that life (by simple science and definition) begins at conception. In the end, I’m not certain which is better, those who are honest about what they are doing or those who are embarrassed by what they’re doing and so call it something else. I am, however, curious as to the reason Rall believes that (as he states) “women have the right to murder their unborn babies” - since this is hardly as self-evident as the Constitutional rights Americans see as inalienable (which are far from obviously evident themselves).

Fourth of July weekend will have cineasts across the country clamouring to witness a teenager in red and blue tights make graceful before a New York backdrop. And I admit that I'll be one of those same cineasts.

However.

However, there will be a much better film released on the same weekend that I'm looking forward to with much greater anticipation than I am for Spider-Man 2. At least, I presume it will be better. If history has any say in the matter it will.

Some of you may recall that in 1995, Richard Linklater crafted a film starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy that may be among the most thoroughly romantic films ever committed to reel. More about character than circumstance, Before Sunrise established the kind of relationship between two souls that rarely finds its way into any kind of story - whether film or literature. Certainly neither Hawke's nor Delpy's character is without flaw. At times, my brow furrowed at the things they'd say or choices they'd make. Yet this realism is part of the charm, part of the illusion.

Essentially a long conversation (similar to Linklater's Waking Life - though with much more grounding and not nearly as pretentious), the couple, Jesse and Celine, have the kind of personal conversation that I like to think have characterized the best and funnest of my dates - though there's is sustained in a way that only cinema can allow. The love is true and in its own muddled way, pure. I cherished this film.

And on 2 July, the sequel will be released. Not only has it been nine years for audiences but nine years for Jesse and Celine. And the last time we saw them was the last time they saw each other. That's all I know, but it should suffice to say that I am lusting for this movie in the way I desired wholly to see Episode One or The Fellowship of the Ring before their releases.

I think all of you who love good film owe it to yourselves to rent/purchase Before Sunrise in the week-and-a-half before its sequel Before Sunset arrives to small ovation in scattered theaters throughout the nation.