Gender: Male
Status: Swinger
Age: 28
Sign: Cancer
City: Gotham
State: New York
Country: US
Signup Date:
10/30/05
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Monday, July 09, 2007
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92. Why consumers are not going to buy movies on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray
Current mood:  pessimistic
Category: Web, HTML, Tech
blog number: 92
date: 2007.07.09
Why consumers are not going to buy movies on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray
By this point you've probably seen the hype in television commercials or store displays about movies now becoming available on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. Your first thought was probably, "Crap, I just bought a DVD player a few years ago. Is it already becoming obsolete?" Then your second thought was probably, "Crap, there's two different formats. Which one am I going to have to buy?" In the tech world, that second question currently is the big debate. (They already assume the answer to the first question is an obvious "yes.") But I have a simple answer to both questions: The winner is going to be regular old DVD. Consumers aren't going to upgrade to either format because they won't see a need to abandon their current DVD players.
First: The only real benefit to HD-DVD or Blu-ray over DVD is better picture quality. (You've probably heard all the related hype about high definition TV.) DVD had higher picture quality that VHS, its predecessor, but it also had numerous other advantages. DVDs don't need to be rewound, take up less space, can be played on a computer (which is a big advantage when taking a laptop on a trip), allow you to jump to any scene almost instantly, don't degrade in quality the more they are viewed, and have a lifetime of 100 years (whereas VHS tapes supposedly go blank within 20 years). But I think the biggest selling point for DVDs has been bonus footage, especially with movies that you have already bought on VHS or taped off of television. (Similar to how older music albums re-released on CD have the ever-present "one new bonus track.") Even though the vast majority of bonus footage is crap, for some reason the promise of seeing some "never-before-seen footage" is often seems to be what convinces people to buy a DVD. But with HD-DVD and Blu-ray, the only benefit over DVD is that now you can see movies in high definition. After being spoiled by all of the new features of DVDs, that is not going enough of a reason to upgrade. (Unless the movie studios are smart and re-release movies with even more bonus crap, since they know we're such suckers for that.)
Second: But shouldn't higher picture quality be enough of a selling point by itself? Actually, the surprising answer is no. Picture quality is nice, but for the average consumer it isn't the be all and end all that the industry believes it to be. Betamax tapes were initially only 60 minutes long, which created a pretty obvious problem - you couldn't fit an entire movie on one tape. Sure, switching tapes is just an annoyance, but the dealbreaker was that you couldn't set the timer to record a movie while away from home. Sony did consider making 2 hour Betamax tapes, but they judged the decrease in picture quality to be "unacceptable." VHS on the other hand made 3 hour tapes, which is one of several reasons why VHS became more popular than Betamax. Later, consumers wanted even longer tapes so they could record an entire sporting event, and VHS was almost as stubborn as Betamax at "compromising picture quality," but begrudgingly they created a 4 hour tape. Nowadays VCRs and DVD recorders can record for 6 hours (or sometimes even more), and consumers apparently don't seem to be worried about loss of picture quality, because 6 hours by far seems to be the recording time most often used by the average person. In fact, the only times I've ever used the shorter recording times were by accident, because they usually make 2 hours the default recording time. (Apparently the companies still don't get it.) And when I've done that, I never noticed much of a difference in picture quality. I'm sure an expert can, but I can't. Maybe if I had a big screen TV I could, but I don't. And even if I could, I would still turn down 2 hours of great quality in favor of 6 hours of pretty good quality. So even if consumers buy recordable HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs, they won't be using them to record two hours of high definition TV (as intended). Instead they'll be using them to record tons of standard quality television on a single disc.
Third: Even if you do want better picture quality, there is more to it than simply buying an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player. You won't see any improvement with your current TV, because most likely it can't read high definition signals, so you need to go out and buy an HDTV. But even if you buy a standard size 20 inch TV, you probably still won't notice much of a difference. You need to buy a ginormous 40 or 50 inch TV to really detect the difference that high definition makes, which will set you back at least $2000. Although HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players are expensive now ($400), the price will definitely go down after a few years, probably even close to what DVD players currently cost. But big screen TVs are still going to be expensive years from now. (They always have been expensive, even before they started making plasmas and LCDs). So if you can't afford a big TV, it's not really worth upgrading from DVD. Videophiles will, because they always want the latest and greatest, regardless of price. Rich people will too, because they'll want to show off that they can afford it. But the other 98 percent of the country will be sticking with what they currently have.
Fourth: High definition picture could prove to be a curse rather than a blessing. If you've talked to anyone who already has a big screen HDTV, they've probably told you that high definition picture is "too good." With HDTV, you can now see blemishes, cellulite, and other imperfections on actors that you couldn't see before. If you thought actors were insecure about their looks before, you ain't seen nothing yet. Sure, with landscapes and scenery you'll appreciate high definition. But when it comes to your favorite actors, you'll realize that ignorance was bliss, and maybe we were better off when it looked like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had the flawless skin that we thought they had. It reminds me of an episode of "Married With Children" where Al Bundy got glasses, and once he saw what his house, his wife, and finally himself in the mirror looked like, he threw the glasses on the ground and stomped on them.
Prediction: So do I think HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are both going to be utter failures? No. They'll become popular in the computer world, because computers always need more and more space for storing data. And I think both will survive, as was the case with recordable DVDs (DVD-R verses DVD+R). But neither will become popular in the TV/video world - once again just as DVD recorders haven't with couch potatoes. Instead, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are both destined to become the modern day version of the laserdisc. (Younger readers might be saying, "The what?" and to that I say, "Exactly.")
Saint Sean
the patron saint of crushing others' hopes and dreams
PS: I think this article said it best - "...the press has jumped on the whole VHS vs. Betamax analogy.... Personally, I think a better analogy is the whole SACD vs. DVD-Audio fiasco--you know, the war that no one seems to care about and no one's winning."
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-8900_7-5600201-1.html
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Currently
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Le Funk
By
VHS or Beta
Release date: 20 September, 2005
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7:34 AM
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17 Comments - 14 Kudos
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Tuesday, April 24, 2007
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91. Saint Sean - The Second Coming (get your mind out of the gutter)
Current mood:  rejuvenated
Category: Games
blog number: 91
date: 2007.04.23
91. The Resurrection of Saint Sean
Heartbroken that your favorite MySpacer had disappeared to that great big social networking site up in the sky? Well, dry those tears from your eyes, for I have wonderful news. Saint Sean is not as dead as Don Imus's radio career after all. (Editor's note: topical humor which probably won't make any sense a year from now) I am proud to declare that it is I, the saint himself, and just like Elvis Presley and Tupac Shakur, I am very much alive. Sorry for taking so long to announce that my previous blog was an April Fool's joke. As you have probably noticed, I have become rather lazy at posting new blogs the last few months. It would have been much more appropriate to "rise from the dead" three days later or on Easter Sunday, just like my man J.C. did. Nevertheless, happy (belated) April Fool's Day. Fooled you all, didn't I? Hardy har har. (Editor's note: for those born after Al Gore invented the internet, the modern translation is "LMAO".)
Actually, it looks like not so many people were fooled this year. Where did I go wrong? Did I do too good of a job last year, causing everyone to be on high alert this year? If you weren't around a year ago, on April Fool's Day in 2006 I made a fake news article claiming that the pope was going to declare me an actual saint. I fooled a good number of people, but blogs seem to have high turnover. Readers frequently disappear, and newer ones take their place, so I assumed a large percentage of my readers had never seen my previous April Fool's gag, and therefore would have no reason to be on the lookout for one this year. I also noticed there was a multitude of April Fool's gags on MySpace this year, so overkill probably was a major factor. Every gag this year seems to have been met with the words, "Nice try," regardless of how cleverly or clumsily the gag was contrived.
However, I personally blame the "cockblockers" who felt the need to post comments announcing that they realized it was a joke, hence ruining the joke for anyone who hadn't read it yet. Congratulations on being smarter than a fifth grader, now go pick up your prize from Jeff Foxworthy. I'm not singling anyone out, because a fair number of people who commented did this. You could have sat there in silence and laughed along with me as Gullible Gustophers left heartfelt comments lamenting my apparent passing. Instead, you had to show off to the world how super smart you are by proudly declaring to the world that you figured out it was a joke, which obviously ruins the joke for the other 999,999 of my readers. (Editor's note: actual readership of this blog is within +/- 999,990) Where's the fun in that? It's like trying to do a crossword puzzle after some inconsiderate jerk has already written in all the answers. Or getting sloppy seconds in a gang bang. Thanks a lot, foolblockers. I figure I will now return the favor by ruining any remaining secrets that people might still be unaware of : For your information, Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father, the person who shot J.R. is the same person who shot Mr. Burns AND the guy on the grassy knoll, Soylent Green is made out of people (ditto for Soylent White and Soylent Teal), and the final episode of "Lost" is going to be one of those lame "the last 10 seasons were all just a dream" episodes. I feel like Nirvana and Pearl Jam in the early 90s - I hate my own fans. However, the comments did make me laugh, so touche. Like any good holy man, the Saint grants you his forgiveness. Unlike me, you guys aren't perfect, so I shouldn't hold it against you.
On the bright side, there were a few people whose comments indicated they fell for the joke, so obviously they posted their comments before reading the other comments first. I can't help but wonder how many people thought it was indeed genuine until they read the comments, and then suddenly changed their tune and claimed, "Oh, I knew it was a joke the whole time too. You didn't have me fooled for a second." Not to toot my own kazoo, but I personally thought I did a good job on my prank. I spent a long time trying to think of what could top last year's doozy. I tried to make it different from one of my typical writings by leaving out all of my usual formatting, relinquishing first comment privileges, and (gasp) even writing something much shorter than one of my usual ramblefests. However, one person did say it sounded too much like my writing style, so I suppose I could have disguised it better. And when I had thought of the initial idea about half a year ago, I had planned to "disappear" from MySpace a few weeks in advance, to make people wonder what had happened to me. (Little did I know that I would end up becoming such a slacker at posting new blogs the last few months anyway.) In fact, for a while I have been considering "retiring" from MySpace because it consumed so much of my time, so I was thinking the April Fool's blog would have made a great "series finale," because then people would have been forever wondering whether the "obituary" really was true or not.
However, although I am not retiring from MySpace, I am now officially retiring from something else - April Fool's gags. This year proved to me that most people already have their guard up against April Fool's pranks on MySpace as a whole, and from me in particular. So that part of me did "die" this April 1. In fact, next year you aren't going to hear anything from me on April 1 - fact or fiction - because I've come to the conclusion there isn't anything I could say without someone suspecting it to be a hoax. I could merely discuss the news item of the day, and someone would probably accuse me of somehow managing to pull the wool over the eyes of every major news outlet in the country. So next year on April 1 I vow you will hear nothing from me but static. (Of course, some of you may already be suspecting this is merely a setup for next year's gag.)
Saint Sean
"Can't fool them twice - shame on me."
PS: Some people consider joking about death to be off limits, so I was expecting a few people would say my joke went too far. However, one person said her mother actually did pass away on April 1 a few years ago, but since her brother was a jokester, nobody believed him. I never saw that one coming, and so that caused me to feel pretty guilty about my gag. It also made me wonder what if I really had died, and everyone had been sitting here mocking my death. (Of course, this is assuming she was telling the truth. Otherwise that might be the greatest April Fool's of them all, to fool another April Fooler.)
PPS: Speaking of which, I must admit I fell for Google's April Fool's Day joke. Google has done things in the past that were unbelievable at the time (like giving 1 GB of mail when most people were only giving 5 MB), so I never doubted they would be crazy enough to actually do something like offer to print stuff for you too. Imagine, rather than wasting your own paper and ink to print a 50 page document, it could simply arrive in the mail 3 days later? I was really disappointed when it turned out to only be a joke.
April Fool's Day pranks 2006
prank 1: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=35522412&blogID=104424670
prank 2: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=35522412&blogID=105273514
aftermath: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=35522412&blogID=106505631
April Fool's Day prank 2007
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=35522412&blogID=248122212
6:14 AM
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40 Comments - 43 Kudos
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Sunday, April 01, 2007
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PLEASE READ: A message to all of Sean's friends
Category: Life
Hello everyone,
This is Sean Sr., Sean's father. With immeasurable despair in my heart, I must inform you all that Sean has passed away. As some of you may already know, he was involved in a serious car accident several weeks ago. He was a fighter until the end, but inevitably the injuries he sustained were far too serious for even him to overcome, and he finally breathed his last on Wednesday, March 21. The viewings were on the proceeding Friday, and his funeral service was on Saturday the 24th.
After spending several days of doing practically nothing except for mourning, lying in bed all day, and crying, a few days ago my wife and I finally started the painful process of sifting through his belongings. Eventually the topic came up of what to do regarding his MySpace page, which we know he spent a lot of time working on. Should we delete it? Or should we just leave it as is and not touch it? On the one hand we didn't think it was proper to keep it alive after his passing, but on the other hand we didn't like the idea of "erasing" him from the world's memory either.
Finally, we decided that we would turn his page into a memorial of sorts. Since many of the friends he made on this website live far away, too far to have come to the viewing, we figured this would be an excellent way for people to pay their last respects and say their final goodbyes. Unlike flowers left in front of a headstone, these would be a more permanent tribute to his memory. And they will be on the internet for all the world to see, rather than people who merely happen to be driving past a cemetery. We think it's what he would have wanted. (I know I myself would be pretty annoyed if someone deleted something I had spent so much time working on.)
So feel free to leave any notes you wish. Goodbye messages, kind words, anecdotes, memories, pictures, quotes, prayers, poems. Anything is fine, as long as it is in good taste. And if you have any questions for me about Sean, I will attempt to answer them to the best of my ability. Thank all of you for your support and well wishes during this most difficult time for my family. I know Sean is presently looking down upon us and is grateful for all of your support.
Sincerely,
Sean Sr.
12:42 PM
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Monday, February 05, 2007
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89. Christmas 2006: Gift cards have now replaced fruitcakes as the worst Christmas gifts
Current mood:  grateful
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping
blog number: 89
date: 2007.02.05
Sorry for taking so long to write a new blog (over two months!), but I've finally returned from my "sabbatical." I know the holiday season has already come and gone, but you're probably still dealing with the same problem I am – trying to find a use for all of those gift cards that people were so "thoughtful" to have given to you.
Christmas 2006: Gift Cards
Gift giving is one of those ideas that sounds wonderful in theory but is disastrous in practice. You get stressed out trying to think of a gift that someone will enjoy, and then once you've found something that you're convinced they'll love, the person ends up hating what you had thought was the "perfect gift". Or if they do like it, they already have it. Then when you're on the receiving end of gift giving, you have to act like the gift you have just received is exactly what you wanted, even though within your head you're wondering what the hell they were thinking. Nowadays, the "solution" to the difficulties of gift giving is to buy gift cards. Ironically, you still run into many of the same problems you would with a regular gift - receiving a gift that you don't want, can't use, and can't return. In fact, in some ways a gift card is even worse than a regular gift. While there might be several different stores where you can try to exchange that Chia Pet you received for store credit, a gift card can only be used at the store where it was bought. Even worse, some gift cards have expiration dates or monthly "dormancy fees." (Although to be fair, if two years go by and you still haven't used that gift card yet, then you're probably never going to use it.) So what do you do with it? You can sell it on eBay, but you'll receive about $5 less than its face value (e.g. a $20 gift card will sell for $15). On the bright side, gift cards are easy to regift, since it's difficult for someone to "prove" whether it is a new gift or a regift. Mark my words - gift cards are destined to become the modern day equivalent of the fruitcake.
I don't understand why it's so hard to give someone a gift card that they would enjoy and could actually use. Why not just buy one for a store like Best Buy, Circuit City, or Blockbuster? What person couldn't go there and pick out some DVD or CD to use the gift card on? Yet I've never received a gift card for one of those stores. Instead, it's always for some store I never shop at, and may not even have heard of. I can understand not knowing what type of movies someone enjoys. You should be able to figure out what type of store someone probably shops at, but even that I can understand too. But you can't even figure out what type of store MOST people would shop at? I know people are dumb, but I think there's more to it than that. People don't want to simply give you a gift card anyone could probably use. No no no, that would be too easy. Instead, they try to put thought into it, and that is the problem. Maybe I'm just cynical, but since I think it's so easy to get someone a gift card they would actually enjoy, when I get a craptastic one instead, I assume the person had ulterior motives. Here are the four types of gift cards that in my experience, people tend to receive:
1. The "showoff" gift card - This gift card is for some ridiculously expensive store like the Sharper Image. You could walk in with a $50 gift card to that store, and it still wouldn't be enough to afford a pair of batteries there. Or even worse, there are gift cards for the SkyMall catalog that you see on airplanes. Great, it's not enough that I'm paying $99.99 for a ballpoint pen - I have to pay for shipping and handling too? You usually receive this gift from someone you don't know too well, and it is a thinly veiled attempt to impress you, as if to say, "This is the type of store that I shop at, and I assumed you have the same standard of living as I do." Or on the "glass half full" side of things, it could be a compliment, as if the person "assumed" that's the type of store you shop at. After all, wouldn't you be insulted if someone gave you a gift card to Marshall's?
2. The "do-gooder" gift card - This gift card is usually from a relative, and is intended for you to somehow better yourself. A typical example is a gift card to Barnes and Noble, to encourage you to read. Luckily bookstores also sell magazines, because otherwise these gift cards would most likely sit in my drawer for eternity. Come on, even parents dislike when their children give them a tie or a vacuum as a gift. Nobody wants a "practical" gift - they want a fun gift.
3. The "cheapskate" gift card - This is a gift card that you know the only reason you received it was because the buyer was able to get it for a discount. For example, someone works at Spencer Gifts, and the gift they give you is - surprise, surprise - a gift card for Spencer's. Yeah it's a cool store, but don't act like you didn't buy it because you were able to use your employee discount on it. Or someone gives you a prepaid movie ticket, and you know for a fact they buy that Entertainment Book people try to sell you every year that contains all of those coupons in it. Sometimes a company will give all of their employees the same gift card, and it's a safe bet they must have received some bulk discount on them. Or even worse, some companies will gift their employees a gift card for their own products.
4. The "self" gift card - This gift card is for a store that the person who gave you the card loves to shop at. Have you noticed that with regular gifts, people tend to give gifts that they themselves would love to receive? It's the same with gift cards. A truly cynical person will say someone will intentionally give this gift card even though they know you won't like it, in the hopes that months later you will end up giving it to someone who could use it (namely, back to the person who gave it to you). Or to still be cynical but not to such an extreme, the gift giver is trying to introduce you to something they enjoy, albeit somewhat heavy-handedly – you feel "forced" to use the card, because otherwise it will go to waste. For example, a person who loves weird gadgets might buy you a gift card to the Discovery Channel Store. Note that this is not to be confused with the "do-gooder" gift card, because here the aim is less altruistic. They might try to convince you they have educational toys at the Discovery Store, but really they want to infect you with the same "Dr. Fad" addiction that they have. However, I want to give people the benefit of the doubt. I would like to believe that since they love the store so much and find so many things there they want to buy, they absent-mindedly assume everyone else would too. Notice I thought a gift card to Best Buy would be the "perfect" gift card? On the other hand, I notice that women typically give me gift cards for clothing stores. I'm sure they're using the same line of thinking as me - it's a gift card that "everyone" could use. Who couldn't go to any clothing store and find tons of items they would love to buy? (I'm sure 99% of women just raised their hands, but let's just say that for men the percentage is probably slightly less.) Or maybe this is actually the "do-gooder" gift card. After all, what woman doesn't wish that most of the men she knows wore nicer clothes?
However, there are some gift cards that truly can be used by almost everyone. Wal-Mart sells practically everything under the sun, so who couldn't find something to purchase there? Or you could be super practical and give them a gift card to an "everyday" store like a supermarket or a gas station. Some malls offer gift cards good at any store in the building. And all the major credit card brands (MasterCard, American Express, etc.) offer gift cards good at any business that takes that credit card. Notice how these "practical" gift cards are less flattering and more general? Who would be excited to receive a gift card for Pathmark or Exxon? You could definitely use it, but it's not a "fun" gift. And wouldn't you be almost insulted to receive a McDonald's Arch Card? (Although McDonald's is like television - even though most of us act like we hate it, deep down inside we all secretly have to admit "I'm lovin' it.") And a Visa gift card is a form of payment that is accepted almost everywhere, so at that point it's almost the same as simply giving cash. So wouldn't it make more sense to give cash instead?
Yet most people believe that you shouldn't give money as a gift. Why not? Because they have the mistaken belief that people will think it's rude to simply give them cash as a gift, thinking that it doesn't show much effort on the gift giver's part. I don't know where this myth started, but I completely disagree with it. Firstly, it doesn't make much sense to take a form of currency that is universally accepted in the United States (and a good portion of the rest of the world too) and exchange it for a form of currency that is only accepted at a fraction of a percentage of those locations. (Even Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, has "only" around four thousand U.S. locations.) But more importantly, I have NEVER, ever seen anyone disappointed to receive money as a gift. Quite the opposite – it's often people's favorite gift. Usually distant relatives mail you a card containing a check, telling you, "We're sorry, but we had absolutely no idea what to get you, so that's why we had to give you cash." Why are you apologizing? Your gifts are the ones I look forward to the most. As for the "not much effort" myth, if a friend or relative simply walked up to you, opened up their wallet, and placed money in your hand, that clearly would be showing little effort. But by going out and getting a card to put the money into, that fulfills the "effort" requirement for me. No one gets insulted when you give them a check for a wedding, graduation, bar mitzvah, etc., so why should it be any different for Christmas or a birthday? So I say next holiday season, forget this gift card nonsense and just give people what everyone really wants - cold hard cash.
St. Sean
the patron saint of holiday cheer
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Currently
watching
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Yule Log Hotties (WMVHD)
Release date: 19 June, 2006
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8:47 AM
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33 Comments - 36 Kudos
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Wednesday, November 29, 2006
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88. Expressions I hate
Current mood:  irritated
Category: Writing and Poetry
blog number: 88
date: 2006.11.29
Expressions I hate
hooking up
This is one of the phrases I despise the most, because it is incredibly ambiguous. It can range anywhere from simple kissing to full out sex. In the traditional baseball metaphor, it could refer to any of the four bases. So what is the value in using such a meaningless phrase? Obviously, the very reason why people use this phrase is because of its ambiguous meaning. My theory is that people use this phrase to imply either more or less happened than what really occurred, depending upon the situation. For example, if you go out with a really hot person, and all you did was kiss, you'll tell people that you "hooked up" with that person, to imply that you got further with them than you actually did. On the other hand, if you have a one-night stand with a person who turns out to be hideous the next morning, after carefully leading them out without anyone seeing you, when your friends later confront you about what happened with the person you went home with last night, you'll tell them that all you did was "hook up" with them.
literally
The word "literally" must literally be one of the most misused words in the English language today. For example, it is common to hear some dumbass say something like, "Today while I was giving a presentation, I realized the fly of my pants was unzipped, and I literally died of embarrassment." Did you really? So I guess I'm now talking to your ghost, huh? You literally don't know shit from shinola. (Although to be honest, I don't either. What exactly is shinola?) Other times people use the word when it is unnecessary. For example, "This is literally my first trip to Hawaii." Oh, so you've only been there before figuratively? How was it? Was it literally or figuratively 90 degrees in figurative Hawaii? People who say stupid things like this should have their mouths sewn shut. Literally, not figuratively.
I'm going to kill them!
This expression is so overused that it has lost all meaning. When someone is afraid of getting in trouble with someone else, they'll say, "He's going to kill me." It especially irks me when it's something of relative unimportance, such as, "I forgot to give her back the CD I borrowed from her. She's going to kill me." So the punishment for returning something late is death? I'm glad to see the punishment fits the crime. (Although if you remember "Conan the Librarian" from the movie UHF, that literally was the punishment for returning a book late.) I would love it if one day some guy used the phrase, "I'm going to kill him," when they were pissed off at someone, and then later that person was found murdered. Then the next day, the police show up at the first guy's house and arrest him as a murder suspect because they found an audio tape that recorded him saying, "I'm going to kill him." Hopefully he will be found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to death, so then you can say they're going to kill him for using the phrase, "I'm going to kill him."
110%
Every time an athlete gets interviewed after a game, I can practically guarantee that at some point he is going to talk about "giving 110%." Since 100% is the maximum effort you are possibly able to give, it is impossible to give more than 100%, so what you are really referring to as 100% and 110% are really 91% and 100% respectively. Dummies like you probably call the director of Spinal Tap and ask him where you can buy your own amplifier that goes up to 11. The only way an athlete could ever really give 110% is if he's on steroids. Then again, most of them are, so perhaps I stand corrected. If an athlete says he gave 110%, don't praise him for being a hard worker. Make him take a drug test.
What?
Nowadays when someone says something shocking, it is common for people to say "What?" in disbelief. But when someone says "What?" you're never sure if they meant, "I didn't hear what you said," or "I can't believe what you said." So you'll start to repeat what you said, but most of the time they will interrupt and say, "I heard you the first time." If you did, then why did you say "What?" dummy? There are tons of other phrases you can use to express shock - "Oh my god," "Shit," "I can't believe it," "That's terrible," etc. Stop being a drama queen and saying "What?" as if it is impossible for you to ever hear any bad news which could ever possibly turn your perfect little world upside down. Usually people who say "What?" later say things like "This isn't happening," "That's impossible," "They would never do that," or other expressions of denial, just as that initial "What?" was an instinctual denial of what they just heard. The next time some pretentious asshole says "What?" and you know for certain they heard you, hit them in the head with a shovel. At least the ringing in their ears now gives them a legitimate reason to say "What?"
A similar phrase I hate is "Are you kidding me?" because even though it is more of a legitimate question, you already know that the answer without exception is going to be "No." In the history of mankind, has anyone ever received a "Yes" to that question?
What happened?
When someone wants you to repeat something you said, about a decade ago it became trendy among teenagers to say, "What happened?" (or its longer variant, "What happened now?") I never understood why this phrase became so popular, since it doesn't even make any grammatical sense. For example, you ask someone what time it is, and they respond with, "What happened?" Huh? I don't know, I guess your mother drank while she was pregnant. Now can you tell me what time it is? Why can't people just use a simple "What?" Although in their defense, these are probably the same morons who use "What?" as an expression of shock rather than as a question, so they probably need a way to differentiate between the two. The real question is, what happened to "What"?
What's up?
The third in the "what" trilogy. This is the greeting of choice among gangster rappers, and so when gangster rap hit the mainstream in the early 1990s, the use of this phrase (especially variants like wazzup or 'sup) surged in popularity among American youth, particularly "urban" youth. (By urban youth, I mean both the real deal kids in urban ghettos and the wannabes in the suburbs.) Today it is unofficially replaced "Hello" or "Hi" as the most commonly used greeting among America's youth. However, a lot of people don't remember that "What's up?" used to be a regular everyday expression that adult white folks used back in the 1980's and earlier. (Remember Bugs Bunny saying, "Eh, what's up, doc?") So every now and then, my parents will unwittingly utter a "What's up?" (with correct pronunciation), and whenever it happens in front of one of my friends, they will later laugh and say, "Earlier today, did your parent really say, 'What's up'?" I then have to explain that rather than an embarrassing attempt to be hip, it used to be a normal phrase for grown-up white people to use, and since they (like most parents) are oblivious to anything in current pop culture, they don't realize the cultural implications of the phrase. However, it even gives me a bit of a chuckle too when I hear them say it. (On a similar note, my friend's father often buys beer in 40 oz. bottles, and whenever the cashier gives him a weird look, he angrily says, "I was drinking forties years before the rappers were!") Luckily the phrase has become so ubiquitous that it is largely no longer considered trying to be "gangsta" if you use the phrase, but it is still considered to be a phrase used primarily by young people. It would be comparable to your parents sending you an email that includes the word "LOL."
What words and phrases do you despise?
St. Sean
The patron saint of MySpace. Literally.
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Currently
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Shut up & Dance: Dance Mixes
By
Paula Abdul
Release date: 29 June, 1992
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7:38 AM
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Tuesday, November 21, 2006
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87. Thanksgiving Day 2006 - Discrimination in turkey presidential pardons
Current mood:  hungry
Category: Pets and Animals
blog number: 87
date: 2006.11.21
Thanksgiving Day 2006
Bias accusations in the turkey presidential pardon selection process
President Bush and Fuhrer Turkey shaking hands at the annual G8 conference. (The turkey had the audacity to call himself "Liberty".)
There is a tradition where every Thanksgiving, the President of the United States "pardons" a turkey, and so rather than face "execution" like most turkeys do in November, that turkey receives the privilege of being able to live out the rest of his days on a peaceful farm and be assured that his death will result only from natural causes. Although many probably assume this is merely a playful tongue-in-cheek tradition, I find this practice reprehensible. For one thing, in recent years, two turkeys have been pardoned instead of only one. Similar to how beauty pageants choose a runner up, a "Vice Bird" is chosen in case the "First Bird" is somehow unable to fulfill his duties.* What's next, a Speaker of the Farm? I don't think it's a stretch to wonder if at some point an entire cabinet will be chosen for the First Bird. For example, what would we do if terrorists blew up Turkey Force One (i.e. the old beat up pickup truck from the turkey farm), and both the First and Vice Birds were aboard, God forbid? At that point, it sounds like a teenage girl having a party that only her "best friends" are invited to - all twenty of them. If you're going to pardon that many turkeys, at that point you might as well pardon them all. Then we'll all be stuck there on Thanksgiving with nothing to eat except for gravy soup.
So how does the president choose which two turkeys are going to be pardoned? I assume the president must receive thousands of letters from turkeys on "death row," so how do you determine which two are going to be spared from the butcher's guillotine? How does the president even manage to sleep with such life or death decisions weighing on his conscience? You would probably assume that in a nation which values democracy and equality so highly, the two turkeys are chosen either through a random lottery or by a popular vote. I was horrified to discover that is anything but the case. Instead, in the superficial, outer-beauty-obsessed, judge-a-book-by-its-cover society that we live in, the turkeys are chosen merely based on their looks. I am ashamed, but I am not surprised. So what is the unrealistic, turkey magazine cover "ideal" image that turkey breeders are striving for? For starters: Women, you will be stunned to hear that only male turkeys are chosen. The reason is because supposedly the males of the species are larger and more colorful than the females. (Apparently in the world of turkeys, the males are the "fairer sex.") For the vast majority of human history, women have been second class citizens, so now that women achieved equality in the 20th Century, it would be hypocritical to turn a blind eye while female turkeys continue to be discriminated against.
Secondly, the male who is chosen is no common Joe Gobbler Six Pack. Instead, he is a child of privilege. He was raised by a breeder in the lap of luxury in an air-conditioned barn, while countless multitudes of his brethren grew up homeless (the experts euphemistically refer to them as "wild turkey"). From a pool of about 2500 such blue-bloods, six elite specimens are chosen because they possess whatever various "master race" characteristics the Aryan breeders are looking for. Chairman Mao... I'm sorry, I mean Chairman Nick Weaver, the head of the National Turkey Federation (yes, it's a real organization) then moves them to another building where they are isolated from the plebeian masses, reminiscent of China's ancient Forbidden City. The chairman then personally raises them in his own image (obviously this guy has a mad scientist-like God complex). The turkeys take part in a sort of finishing school where they are molded to become heirs-apparent to the throne - I mean president-elects to the Oval Office. In order to domesticate them for the ceremony with the president, for four months they are exposed to people wearing dark suits (I shit you not). They clap, talk loudly, flash cameras, pet them, and do everything else that you could expect to see at a presidential press conference. It reminds me of when Pocahontas was brought to England, clothed in exquisite European dresses as if she was a doll, and trained to behave like a "gentle woman." That, or Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. The two top guns in flight school (where ironically they are trained to choose neither fight nor flight) are then selected as the two to be pardoned.
How is it even conceivable that in a democracy as great as ours, an aristocratic turkey is appointed as His Majesty, the King of All Turkeys? Is this not the very reason why the thirteen colonies renounced their king and fought for independence? However, perhaps there is some justice in the world. In an ironic twist of fate, the pardoned turkey often does not live long himself. In fact, even though the pardon applies for all future Thanksgivings, the bird usually does not even live to see another Thanksgiving. Why do they die if it is forbidden to execute them? Since these turkeys are bred to be enormous, their immense weight causes them to die fairly soon anyway. So when the turkeys arrive at the retirement farm, rather than be greeted by a flock of "ex-presidents," they instead discover an Arlington National Cemetery filled with their predecessors. A grim fate, but at least they receive a burial ceremony, unlike all the other turkeys which get devoured by carnivorous predators (i.e. humans) and then have their remains tossed into a Parisian Catacombs-like mass grave (i.e. a landfill).
While it is somewhat comforting to know that these upper-class turkeys suffer an untimely death just like their working class brethren, it still bothers me to know that they are privileged to enjoy such pomp and circumstance before their death simply due to being of noble birth, as if their lives were so much more worthy of commemoration. If anything, are not the deaths of the blue collar turkeys more significant, since they are the ones who lives served more of a purpose (i.e. food)? The turkey emperor is merely a figurehead, while his peasant subjects are the ones that actually have any impact on society. (Karl Marx, eat your heart out.) So I say that in the spirit of our forefathers, we use our right to bear arms and rebel in the face of obvious tyranny. I say, we engage in turkey terrorism and assassinate the turkey president-elect and vice-president-elect during the pardoning ceremony, right before the crowns are placed on their heads. No turkey deserves the right to receive an indulgence from the turkey holocaust simply because of affluence or family connections. Not only would this patriotic act voice our outrage at the crowning of an absolute monarch in a supposedly democratic society, but I would also get a sardonic laugh if a sniper climbed over the outer wall of the White House, and all the bodyguards rushed to protect the president, when in fact the sniper was only attempting to assassinate the turkeys.
St. Sean
the patron saint of all turkeys, regardless of class, gender, creed, or color
warning: Please do not try this at home. I don't want to be banished to Guantanamo Bay because someone was dumb enough to actually attempt to infiltrate the White House and assassinate the turkey pardon recipient simply because I suggested it.
source: National Geographic Today - "Where Do Turkeys Go After Being Pardoned by the President?"
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/11/1120_TVprezturkeys.html
*In 2001, Liberty replaced Freedom, the original heir to the throne, after Freedom tried to escape on the morning of the pardon. Apparently he must have had second thoughts about becoming dictator of the entire Turkey Reich.
12:25 PM
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Thursday, November 16, 2006
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86. The Brooklyn Bridge Conspiracy Theory
Current mood: suspicious
Category: suspicious Travel and Places
blog number: 86
date: 2006.11.15
The Brooklyn Bridge Conspiracy Theory:
Why are those two empty police cars always parked on the bridge?
For the past year I have noticed that every single time I drive across the Brooklyn Bridge, regardless of what time of day it is, there are always two police cars parked behind each other in one lane at the beginning of the bridge. The rear car has its lights flashing, but mysteriously, both cars are always empty. The cars are parked a few feet apart, and there are a few orange traffic cones standing next to them. Construction perhaps? Or a car accident? Whatever. But then when you go back across the bridge in the other direction, once again there are two empty parked police cars, at approximately the same spot on the opposite end of the bridge. What's going on here? Before you might have bought the idea those cop cars were merely marking off a pothole, but now you know this can't be a coincidence.
You might be wondering how I was able to do such a thorough rubberneck investigation while zooming across a bridge at 60 M.P.H. If that is the case, then I take it you have never been to New York before. A dandy little side effect of parking those cars right in the middle of traffic is the insane amount of traffic they cause. New York traffic is already bad enough on its own, so when you force three lanes of traffic to merge into two, it creates an absolute nightmare. In fact, when driving down Manhattan's FDR Drive, the line for the Brooklyn Bridge exit at times will back up almost to the previous exit. With all that traffic they cause, there better be a damn good reason why they're there. But no one seems to know for sure. Naturally, the assumption is because of terrorism. I've talked to a few people about this, and some remember those unmanned police cars being there as far back as 2002, which would coincide with all the other post-9/11 precautions enacted in late 2001/2002. All of the other major bridges and tunnels in New York also have police cars parked by their entrances, except for two major differences - those cars are parked on the shoulder of the road, rather in the middle of traffic, and those cars actually have police officers sitting in them. So why don't they do this at the Brooklyn Bridge as well? Ah, but the Brooklyn Bridge also has manned police cars parked exactly beside the entrance on either end of the bridge. Furthermore, these cars are only about a mere hundred feet away from the two empty police cars further down the bridge. So then what exactly is the purpose of those empty cars being parked in the middle of traffic? This question has been bothering me for the entire past year, until recently I finally had an epiphany. I believe I have discovered the true reason for the presence of those empty police cars - one which has absolutely nothing to do with anti-terrorism measures.
I was curious as to why some bridges in New York City charge tolls while others do not, so I did some research. All bridges and tunnels from New Jersey to New York City charge a toll. All bridges connecting the four outer boroughs of the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island to each other also charge tolls*. It is only in Manhattan where some of the bridges connecting it to the other boroughs are free while others charge a toll. The crossings from New Jersey charge a $6 one-way toll (eastbound, entering the city). Most of the interborough bridges only charge $4.50, but they charge you both ways. This has puzzled me for a number of reasons. For a round trip you are paying $9, so why are you paying more to travel within the city than you did to enter the city? Perhaps the rationale is that while you need a car to leave the city, when you're inside the city you should be using public transportation instead of your car, hence the bigger sting. Okay, but traffic is worse in Manhattan than the other boroughs, so wouldn't you rather make the tolls one-way, to discourage people from taking their cars further into the city? And why do some bridges have tolls while others do not? How do the toll bridges stay in business? Wouldn't people always use the free bridges instead? Well, one thing I have learned from experience is that it seems only the toll bridges connect directly to the highways. Sure, the highways may say they have "exits" for the other bridges, but the exit ramp simply takes you off the highway, and you then have to travel through about five minutes of traffic, following a trail of arrow signs which leads you back and forth, turning this way and that, until you finally reach the bridge. Then when you get to the other end of the bridge, you have another five-minute wild goose chase until you get onto another highway. Would you be willing to incur a $9 one-way toll in order to save 10 minutes on your trip? Probably not, especially since you could just take the quicker bridge on the way back (since there would be no toll on the return trip). But would you take a $4.50 hit in order to save 10 minutes, as well as avoid some aggravation? Plenty of cars use these toll crossings on a daily basis, so apparently the answer yes, in a New York minute. So I believe these tolls are nothing more than a moneymaking operation by the City of New York.
As you can see on this map, there are seven crossings over the East River that connect Manhattan to Queens and Brooklyn (numbers 4 to 12 on the map) - the Triborough Bridge, Queensborough Bridge, Queens Midtown Tunnel, Williamsburg Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, and Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Three of the crossings have tolls - the two tunnels and the Triborough Bridge. Not so coincidentally, they also connect directly to a highway on either side.** The other four crossings are toll free. So that means none of them connect directly to the highways, right? Yes, except for one. There is in fact one bridge which connects directly to the highway, yet is toll free. Care to guess which one? Yes, it's the Brooklyn Bridge. So my theory is that the City of New York parks those police cars there in order to purposely cause traffic, in the hopes of dissuading people from using that bridge. When you see the line of cars waiting to cross the bridge, you have three options - wait in traffic for a minimum of twenty minutes, drive north to the nearby Manhattan Bridge (which first requires dealing with five-plus minutes of Chinatown traffic from the highway exit to the actual bridge entrance), or heading south to the also nearby Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, which is directly accessible from the highway, albeit for a surcharge.
However, one question still remains - why are there two police cars used on the bridge? Isn't one all you need? The other day I was driving home late at night, and I decided to take the Brooklyn Bridge since that seems to be the only time of day when the bridge is traffic-free, and I was shocked to see a police officer sitting in the second car (the one without the flashers on). Could it be true? I did it again another late night to verify, and sure enough a cop was once again present in the automobile. One thing you will notice about New York City is that it is rare to see speed limit signs. For most of the day it is practically impossible to get a speeding ticket in New York, because even when you're lucky enough to not be sitting there with your foot on the brake, there are simply too many cars on the road for you to be able to speed. The only time you ever have the opportunity to break the speed limit is late at night. Also, as we all know, a fair percentage of late night drivers are inebriated. So my theory is that it's a trap. Why slow down when you know those cop cars are always empty? Plus, since it's dark, it's difficult to tell whether there is a cop in the car or not, and if at the last moment you do happen to see one in there, by then it's probably already too late. It's brilliant - the cops don't need to do the stereotypical trick of hiding behind a billboard, because they can simply hide in plain sight. Then if they see someone speeding or driving erratically, they can pursue them and hit them with a speeding ticket or a DWI, while still leaving the mandatory parked flashing car stationed on the bridge.
So that's what I believe is going on. The City of New York didn't put those police cars on the Brooklyn Bridge to protect us from terrorism. It put them there as a way to make a few extra bucks. Ironically, the city is going broke because of the War on Terrorism, so perhaps some government official thought it was somewhat fitting to use the fear of terrorism to help pay for the cost of fighting terrorism. But would the government really have the balls to exploit the public's fear of terrorism in such a way? Well, terrorism was one of the main reasons to justify the invasion of Iraq (even though Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden actually hated each other). And just about every business seems to have raised their prices in the last few years, supposedly because of anti-terrorism costs. I don't understand why terrorism would force a deli to raise the price of a bagel for example, but that's the standard excuse given.
You may be wondering why doesn't the city simply build tollbooths on the Brooklyn Bridge. Wouldn't that be much simpler than this whole conspiracy plot? Besides, the toll collectors could help keep an eye out for suspicious activity, and tollbooths usually have cops sitting there anyway. There isn't much room to build tollbooths, particularly on the Manhattan side of the bridge, but I'm sure they would find a way to make room if they needed it. But it's not that simple. If you start charging for something that used to be free, people get upset. The four toll-free bridges are the oldest bridges in the city that carry cars. The last was completed in 1909, just before automobiles started to become popular. Although I don't know for certain, I assume these bridges never charged tolls in the past. When bridges and highways are built nowadays, they almost always have tolls added to them. Usually the excuse is to help pay for the construction costs (even though the tolls almost always remain even after the bridge or highway has paid for itself). However, it would irk citizens to add a toll to an older bridge which never had one before, especially to one which is considered to be a "landmark," and the Brooklyn Bridge is probably the most famous bridge in America other than San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. Plus, the bridge has already been paid for, so you have less of a justification for the toll. Also noteworthy is the fact that the man who created New York City's highway system, Robert Morris, was also the man responsible for building two of the three toll crossings, so it is no surprise that he connected the highways to the toll crossings but not the toll-free ones. (Those tolls made his department incredibly wealthy, as opposed to the rest of the government which was always strapped for cash.) So the real question is not why the Brooklyn Bridge doesn't have a toll, but why was the Brooklyn Bridge ever connected to the highways in the first place? Maybe it wasn't until after they connected the Brooklyn Bridge that they realized they were shooting themselves in the foot?
A bit farfetched you say, that the city government would use such deception to raise more cash? In 2005, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority proposed fare increases in 2006 and 2007, claiming that it predicted huge budget deficits, but then later it was forced to admit that it actually been covering up a whopping $900 million surplus. So I wouldn't put anything past them. Toll revenues are enormous (almost a billion dollars annually from the intraborough crossings alone), so there certainly is financial motive. But I'm not crazy enough to think that politicians have been plotting this scheme for years. Politicians aren't that smart. Instead, I believe those police cars most likely were placed there for a legitimate (and temporary) purpose at some point, but then the city government probably noticed an increase in toll revenues at the other crossings and realized perhaps they shouldn't be so hasty in moving those cars. Now five years later, they're still there. But is that really the plan, to continue to intentionally cause traffic indefinitely? They can't plan to keep those cars parked there forever, can they? Conveniently, just like the War on Drugs, the War on Terror can never truly be "won" and will most likely continue for the foreseeable future. Those police cars have been parked there for five entire years, so I don't see them being removed from the Brooklyn Bridge any time in the near future.
St. Sean
the patron saint of government conspiracy plots
update:
New York Daily News - "Cop cars take 'toll' on bridge"
http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/464830p-391119c.html
PS: You may be asking yourself about those bridges on the map heading to the Bronx which I conveniently happened to overlook. In fact there are about 10 car-carrying bridges between Manhattan and the Bronx, but I'm not familiar with most of them, so if any of you are, let me know, since they could make or break my theory. (i.e. Which ones connect to the highways?) Most of them are very short, but I know a few of them still get away with charging small tolls somehow.
*There are three bridges from the Bronx to Queens and one bridge from Staten Island to Brooklyn. Most of Brooklyn and Queens share a land border, so the one bridge connecting them is free. The two bridges connecting the Rockaways to Queens and Brooklyn also have tolls.
**The Queens Midtown Tunnel only connects directly to a highway on the eastern (Queens) end. But perhaps some people will still take a five-minute delay with a toll over a ten-minute toll-free delay?
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Currently
listening
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Hallelujah!: The Very Best of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
By
Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
Release date: 14 March, 2000
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2:23 AM
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26 Comments - 24 Kudos
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Wednesday, November 08, 2006
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85. Who gets the most groupies in a rock band?
Current mood: Freebird
Category: Freebird Music
blog number: 85
date: 2006.11.08
Which band member gets the most groupies?
What compels a male teenager to decide to join a rock band? Is it to create works of art? To have an outlet to express himself? To travel the world? Or perhaps less benevolently, simply to become rich and famous? These thoughts might have inadvertently popped into his head maybe once or twice, but let's be realistic here. The main reason most boys join a band is to get girls. If you don't play on a football team, the next best way to impress a girl is to tell her you play in a band. (I've noticed that a lot of men in music tend to be shorter than average, which leads me to believe they chose music because they couldn't cut it in sports.) And when it comes to attracting girls, rock stars have absolutely no competition. Actors, athletes, politicians, and CEOs all get their fair share of the fairer sex, but rockstars win by a landslide. I would even argue that the average broke musician probably gets more female attention than the average suit on Wall Street. The only male fit to compete on the same playing field as a musician is another musician. So which band member deserves the title of King Shit of Fuck Mountain? Being an avid music fan (and today being the day after Election Day), here is my ranking of which member of a band gets the most female affection, based on my observations of "exit polls" over the years. Some voters choose to vote with their feet, but groupies have another means of "voting" for their favorite member of a band.
1. The singer
I think everyone knows that the one who gets the most groupies in a band by far is the lead singer. He's the one the camera focuses on in a music video, while only occasional glimpses of the other band members are shown. He's always in the center in promotional photographs. If only one band member is going to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone, it's going to be the lead singer. It's a bit unfair, since it takes years of learning and practice in order to become a skilled musician. Meanwhile, just about everybody can sing (or at least thinks they can). Can you imagine what a disaster it would be if when people went to do karaoke, rather than try to sing along, they tried to play an instrument along with the song? (And you thought regular karaoke sounded like cats screeching in an alley.) On the other hand, everyone can try to sing along with a song despite no training whatsoever (albeit to variable results). However, maybe this is the very reason why the singer is the most popular band member - because people can connect to him the most easily. While it's perfectly acceptable to sing along with a song, I have to admit it's pretty dorky when someone in the crowd does air guitar, air drums, or air bass along with a song in a lame attempt to show off that they "know" how to play the song. So with that in mind, perhaps it's better that everyone focuses on the singer.
2. The guitarist
The second band member on the groupie totem pole is the guitarist. He's usually the second most famous person in the band, after the singer. He's usually the one that writes most of the songs, so he does deserve to get a lot of groupies. If there are two guitarists in the band, the lead guitarist gets more groupies, even if the rhythm guitarist is the one that writes the songs. (If both guitarists do solos, it's pretty much a draw, so I guess priority goes to whichever one is cooler or better looking.) A guitar virtuoso is often a male's favorite band member, but while an extended guitar solo can be the bane of female fans (and a fair percentage of male fans as well), a groupie appreciates the showmanship involved in any memorable guitar solo (which is just as important as melody or technical ability), and this is what earns him the second spot on a groupie's "to do" list.
3. The drummer
It may come as a surprise to many to see that the drummer comes next (no pun intended). Drummers are traditionally stereotyped as being dumb, but surprisingly they get a large number of groupies. The reason is that any experienced groupie worth her weight in backstage passes knows that most drummers are usually pretty buff. (I've noticed that every drummer I've ever seen is either ripped or seriously overweight. For some reason there seems to be no middle ground. Although as Garfield says, "Fat flexes," so that may be the secret.) Drummers are usually the silent tough guy type. The guy who if you heard that one day he snapped and killed someone, you wouldn't be too surprised. If Rambo or Clint Eastwood were in a band, they would play the drums. Women love dangerous guys, and the fact that a drummer's job is to beat things with a blunt object so hard that it makes loud noises (think Animal from the Muppet Show) seems to appeal to some primordial vestige in a woman's brain.
4. The bass player
Last and certainly least in the groupie pecking order is the bass player. He gets the leftover scraps of the other band members. He's basically a glorified roadie. But he doesn't complain. He knows he's lucky to get what he does, because many groupies would gladly prefer to wait on a line outside the singer's dressing room to be yet another notch on his bedpost, rather than "degrade" herself and sleep with the lowly bass player. Most likely, the bass player gets the ugly sister of the girl who's doing one of the other band members. Worse, rather than sleep together, they probably just talk for awhile, and then maybe he gets her number. So why is the bass player the Rodney Dangerfield of every band? Very few people initially want to be the bass player. Most bassists also play the guitar (they're fairly similar to play), but they were relegated to playing bass because either the other guy is the better guitarist, or the other guy simply has a stronger personality than him, and so it often doesn't take much convincing before he acquiesces and allows the alpha male to be the guitarist. So what's wrong with bass? Nothing, except that iit's the least flashy instrument in the band. Guitarists get their solos, and drummers have fills (those one or two second "drum solos" to fill in pauses in the song), but the bass is intended to stay in the background. A groupie wants a lead star, not a supporting cast member.
However, there is hope for the bass player - a bass looks awfully like a guitar, and since most groupies are not known for their superior intellect, they probably can't tell the difference between a guitar and a bass. (Here's a tip for all you groupies out there, if you can't tell simply from watching them play and listening to the music: A guitar has six strings, while a bass usually has only four. However, you have to beware against those sneaky bassists, because five and even six string basses are becoming more and more popular. I wonder if their growing popularity is due to groupies possibly evolving and getting smarter?) If you compare an acoustic guitar and a double bass (the "acoustic" version of a bass guitar), they look fairly different, so I can't help but think that the electric bass was intentionally designed to look just like an electric guitar, perhaps with the intention of misleading groupies. But chin up humble bass player, because even though your bandmates may seem to be more popular, you're still doing better than ninety-nine percent of the male population. Even if you're the weakest of the gods, you're still a god walking amongst men. Any of us mere mortals would eagerly trade places with you in a second.
Wild card - The keyboardist
Some rock bands also have a keyboardist, and I regard them as a wild card, because while the other band members' groupie rankings are practically set in stone, I'm not exactly sure where a keyboardist would fall in the batting order. In some bands, keyboards are only used as background instruments, and so the keyboardist can be standing there for most of the song not playing anything, just waiting for "his" part. In that case, he's just one step above a guy playing a tambourine or a cowbell. But in other bands, the keyboardist is the main songwriter, and consequently it is a prominent instrument in the band, perhaps even more than the guitar. However, maybe it's just me, but whenever I see a keyboardist rocking out during a song, it looks incredibly lame. The dork rocking out on the bass looks ten times cooler by comparison. And while the bass was successfully transformed into a guitar-like instrument, the keytar is probably the most embarrassing musical instrument ever invented. I would rather be seen playing a pink accordion than a keytar. These observations lead me to think that the keyboard is simply not a "cool" instrument, at least for a rock band. So does that mean that the keyboardist is even more lowly than the bassist? That is the question I can't resolve in my mind. Tradition tells me that no one gets less respect than the bass player. Plus, haven't a lot of people taken a piano lesson at some point in their life, especially girls? That leads me to think that a groupie would lean more towards the keyboardist than the bass. So my official final standings are going to be singer first, guitarist next, drummer third, and then keyboardist, with bassist in last place. However, there is one exception, which is that if the keyboardist plays a keytar, then he immediately drops to dead last. And unlike a bass player, a "keytarist" has no hope of receiving sloppy seconds. Nobody sleeps with a keytar player. (At least not since maybe 1986).
St. Sean
the patron saint of those who still want to believe "it's only about the music."
PS: So you're probably wondering which instrument I played in a band. At some point I played each role except for lead singer - guitarist, bassist, drummer, and even some backing vocals - so I believe I received a well-rounded insight into how the class system works.... Alright, to be honest, I don't think any of us in the band ever had any groupies.
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Currently
listening
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Break Like The Wind
By
Spinal Tap
Release date: 29 August, 2000
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8:09 AM
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Tuesday, November 07, 2006
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84. Why the Republican Party is so successful
Current mood: strategery
Category: strategery News and Politics
blog number: 84
date: 2006.11.07
Election Day 2006
Why the Republican Party is the more successful party
Today is Election Day in the United States, and political analysts are predicting Democrats are most likely going to regain control of the House of Representatives this year, and perhaps even the Senate. However, I wouldn't be so quick to count the Republicans out. Even though I usually side with the Democrats' views on issues, I have to admit that the Republican Party is the better political party. By "better," I mean that they're better at the game of politics, which is all that politics really is. It's not a matter of which candidate has the best ideas or is the most qualified for the job, but which one is better at being a politician. Note that I'm not accusing the Republicans of lying or wrongdoing. All politicians lie, regardless of party affiliation. I'm just saying that when it comes to the grey area of politics known as spin, Republicans are much better at it. Assuming the Democrats do prevail this year, it is mainly about voters expressing their displeasure with the current Republican president rather than support for the Democratic Party. Once the quagmire that is Iraq finally gets resolved, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Republicans back on top again. So why have the Republicans become so successful in the last decade? Running for office has come a long way from simply shaking hands and kissing babies. Here are a few of the secrets behind the Republican Party's success.
Talking point carpet bombs
The Republicans are a much more unified party. For example, regarding the war in Iraq, most Republicans support President Bush's "stay the course" position. Meanwhile, Democrats' positions are all over the place. Some have always opposed the war, some still support it, while others originally supported the war but now want to pull out since it's turned into a disaster. But it's much more than simply supporting the same positions on issues. Republicans use the same phrases and talking points, and apparently seem to use even the same cue cards. If you watch the Daily Show, they often show how after a major event, the Republican bigwigs will appear on the Sunday morning talk shows to do damage control, and they will show a quick montage of ten or so Republicans making the same exact point on the same day, usually verbatim. Republican headquarters must send every Republican a daily memo saying, "Say the following sentence word for word today in every conversation:" It's an effective technique, because if you keep hearing the same thing repeated by everyone, you start to accept it for fact. (Little do people realize that "everyone" saying it was on the same side.) Keep in mind that they're not lying, they're just all sharing the same exact opinion. Politics today is all about how you spin the facts in your favor, and if everyone seems to be spinning something the same way, you begin to believe that is the "correct" opinion to have on that topic. The greatest example of this was how John Kerry came to be referred to as a "flip-flopper." Both John Kerry and George Bush have changed their minds on various topics, as everyone does (here's a list of examples of both of their "flip-flops"), but John Kerry was referred to a flip-flopper so often that now it's the first thing of whenever you hear his name.
The name game
One Republican strategy is to give laws nicknames that use loaded words to play on your emotions in order to encourage you to be for or against that law simply because of its name. A great example of this is the estate tax. When someone dies and leaves behind a large estate (greater than $1 million, before the Republicans changed the law), a tax is levied on it before it is given to the heirs. This law only affects the wealthiest two percent of Americans, so you would think most people would be in favor of it, right? Only rich people have "estates." Everyone else just has a house. To counteract this, Republicans refer to the estate tax as the "death tax." These words conjure an image of a greedy tax collector showing up on someone's doorstep the minute they hear the news of their death (even though the tax is really on the heir rather than the deceased). It makes you think, "The government seems to tax you for just about everything. Now you're telling me they even tax you when you die?" The term "death tax" has become so ubiquitous that even many people who are in favor of the estate tax unwittingly refer to it as the death tax. (Some proponents of the tax are now fighting back by referring to it as the "Paris Hilton tax.") Another example is the Patriot Act. Who wouldn't vote for a bill with that name, especially during the time period immediately after September 11, when everyone was scrambling to show their patriotism and support for our leaders, and people were afraid to do anything that could be interpreted as being unpatriotic. As a result, the law was passed with virtually no debate. It wasn't until later that people actually read the bill and began to realize that along with a number of good ideas, the bill also authorized a few rather "unpatriotic" things such as allowing the government to conduct secret searches without probable cause. (Wasn't that one of the reasons Americans fought for their independence in the first place?) Perhaps the best example is that the Republican Party is known as the "Grand Old Party." I don't see the Democrats giving themselves any fancy nicknames.
Never admit that you're wrong
A republic is a lazy form of government, because you elect people to make all the decisions for you. When you elect a leader for this purpose, you naturally want them to make the right decisions, so a key to being perceived as a good leader is to never admit that you're wrong. Bill Clinton's downfall was not that he cheated on his wife. (Every politician does that.) Clinton's mistake was that he admitted that he cheated on his wife. Remember when Clinton famously said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman"? The way he denied it so adamantly, a fair number of people still believed him despite the growing controversy. So once he admitted he had lied, the fallout was catastrophic, leading to impeachment. For some reason, when someone tells you something, you usually assume it's true until proven false, which is rather illogical when you consider both how easy it is to lie and how frequently we are lied to. Regardless of how much evidence refutes what you say, whenever you deny something, there will always be at least a few people who believe you. Remember that one old woman juror in the Tyco trial who refused to believe the CEO and CFO would actually lie about their wrongdoing, leading to a hung jury and costly retrial? It's better to have people assume that you're lying (which still leaves some doubt), rather that admit wrongdoing and confirm that you did indeed lie, because even with people that firmly believe you lied, it will always be in the back of people's minds that perhaps you were telling the truth. Even though weapons of mass destruction have never been found in Iraq, Bush has never admitted he was wrong about that. In fact, for a long time he kept reassuring us that we would eventually find them, and as a result, remember how every time a new weapons stockpile was found, people would say, "There, they finally found the WMDs." Even though the Republicans no longer talk about WMDs in Iraq, I'm sure that if you asked Bush today, he would still say that one day we are eventually going to find them. As low as Bush's approval ratings are nowadays, I think his "stay the course" strategy is the best strategy for him (at least until after the 2006 election), because changing strategy would imply that he was wrong, which would only cause his poll numbers to plummet even further. Even though it is supposed to be admirable to admit wrongdoing, it never gets you votes. Instead, it only provokes demands for your resignation.
Republicans actually fight back
Okay, this shouldn't be regarded as a "secret" to success (it should be seen more as common sense), but it is a major distinction between the two parties nowadays. When Republicans are criticized, they actually fight back. For example, when Democrats criticize Republicans' policies such as their plans for fixing Iraq or social security, Republicans reply, "If our idea sucks so much, what's your plan?" Once the ball is hit back into the Democrats' court, they suddenly fall silent. Why not speak up and say we should bring our troops home or that social security is not nearly in as much trouble as Republicans make it out to be? Instead, their silence makes them look like people who just like to complain. Complaining is just about everyone's people's favorite hobby, so we don't need representatives to do that, because we can do it just fine by ourselves. Instead, we elect people to fix the stuff we're complaining about, since we can't be bothered with it. On the flip side, when Bush called Kerry a flip-flopper, Kerry should have replied by pointing out how many times Bush has also changed his mind on various issues. Instead, Kerry said nothing, and so the flip-flopper claim stuck, eventually snowballing into people's biggest complaint about Kerry. Bill Clinton said in an interview that he actually liked when people criticized him, because it's sort of like a penalty kick. It gives you a free opportunity to criticize your opponents, because you're seen as merely defending yourself rather than attacking them. When Republicans are criticized, the political machine immediately comes up with a response. Meanwhile, nowadays Democrats never seem to defend themselves against Republican criticisms. Not only does this further their reputation for being spineless and allowing the Republicans to walk all over them, but if you don't defend yourself, it can be seen as indirectly admitting that the opposition is right.
St. Sean
the patron saint of putting spin on political spin
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The Politics of Dancing
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Release date: 06 November, 2001
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Thursday, November 02, 2006
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