#82: Writing Posts In Advance

So I have discovered that Blogger allows you to schedule posts in advance. So that's what I'm doing. And it makes me happy. Oh so happy. Because now I won't have any excuses (at all, mind you) for not doing one on time (or at least having it look like I didn't do one on time).

In fact, this post was written and ready for publication to the general public on January 29, even though it was published February ??. I find that extremely awesome. And I believe I have that right.

In other news, J.D. Salinger died last Wednesday (it feels so weird to be writing this two days after his death, in the same week). And for those of you who have read some of my previous posts (or the select and special few who will go back and read every single on of my posts after you finish reading this one), the serial that I wrote on Monday, The Man Bartók, is somewhat inspired by J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (of course). So yeah. It's almost kind of personal for me now that he's died. I almost care. Not that I knew the man, or was aware that he was alive until the announcements of his death came out. But now that he's dead, I feel some slight feeling of what might be the beginnings of sadness if made ten times stronger.

I wonder what he's doing. Probably up (or down) there looking down (or up) at us and just laughing (or crying) at us (or for us).

#79: Avatar and How People Are Really Stupid

Wow. It's been almost four months since I've written anything that I really cared about. I tried to do this Republican blog, as you can probably tell, but I lost interest after about a week.

So. What can I do then?

Let's write about Avatar, since everyone else seems to be doing it.

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Well. It kind of sucked. As everyone else ever has said at least once, the plot was basically a rip-off of all tribal movies. The special effects were fucking awesome, like they were in 2012 and Angels and Demons, and pretty much every blockbuster last year, but it didn't do much for me intellectually, which is something that I'm beginning to care more about now.

I don't want to label it a parable about human greed, or a analogy for the war in Iraq, or America or any overacrhing sort of theme like that. This was James Cameron's life dream and I think he just wanted to do cool stuff with special effects (re: Terminator 2 and Alien [neither of which I have seen]).

But mostly, I just think that it is possible that he just wanted to write a movie, and all of this backlash about how it's racist is us reading into it overmuch. People do have a tendency to overanalyse things (re: Every slightly imperfect relationship you've ever been in) and isn't it possible that that's all we're doing with this?

The answer is yes.

And cue an absolute lack of impact and response.

The Future

When was the last time you walked down the street (or drove, or biked, I don't really f*cking care how you get around) and saw a kid (or anyone really, again, I don't give a sh*t) reading a book? Probably never, because reading while walking (or driving, etc.,) is really dumb and can get you killed. BUT how many times have you been going down the street and seen someone holding a Nintendo DS or a PSP or something like that? A lot right? Now, I don't have anything against video games; in fact, I own quite a few and I think that if they were used correctly, they could make the world a better place. However, big gaming companies don't see it my way. They look at previous attempts at educational games and see abject failures. All they care about is making a f*cking buck. (To be addressed in a future post) But if they injected educational, good messages instead of all this overdone sh*t like fighting games and racing games and rescue-the-princess games and RPGs and FPSs and all that other sh*t that all games seem to be now. There isn't an original idea to be seen. The graphics are better, stories are a little bit more complex, but it all boils down to the same, old, f*cking things. If this doesn't change, the future may turn out to be this bleak, depressing, Orwellian world where everyone is predjudiced against everyone else and people kill each other just to gain status. So petition Nintendo and Sony and Microsoft and Atari and everyone else: Make games for a different reason than to make a buck! What you do changes the world, so do good! Think about it.