'Bloody Monday' and the death of the American dream.

Today 71, 400 people lost their jobs. In 2008 alone 2.6 million million jobs were lost. Unfortunately I was part of one of those 2,600,000. Twice I was laid off in two years and this growing number of 'cost cutting initiatives' doesn't help one find work. Losing a job is hard enough but when you are young it's a little easier to swallow. Some of the people today who were laid off have been doing their jobs for 20+ years. That is a harder pill to swallow, especially when 20,000 thousand of those employees got to watch the CEO of CAT James W. Owens gift himself 1.38 million dollars worth (current stock price 32.67) of stock just before Christmas.  

Now I don't know the circumstances of each employee at CAT or James W. Owens, I just know what I see and read. Giving yourself +42ks shares of your companies stock and then laying off 20% of your company in a months time doesn't seem very kosher. Actually it seems down right nasty. Companies use excuses like 'harsh economic climate' and remedy solutions as 'adjustments'. Just call it what it's a 'Grab and Run'. 

I use to deal with with 'Grab and Runs' all the time. You see I worked at a recently deceased department store where people would come in grab as much expensive merchandise as they could carry and run out the doors. I would then go try to stop them. Sometimes I wasn't working or just plain busy and people would eventually get away with merch. Owens isn't really a villain or a criminal. His pay seems moderate. He's just grabbing as much as he can get away with.

Civ Rev and why I wont review games prematurely.

I own a PS3 and a PS2. This is where I do my gaming. I don't really game on my computer because I own a mac. I never kept* an Xbox 360 due to it's subscription based online functionality and I've never really regretted it. Sure their are times when I wish I could play Gears of War 2 or Left 4 Dead but I don't think it's worth supporting Microsoft's business model. I also owned a Wii but after buying a PS3 I sold it and all the games I owned for it to a friend.

(* After the 360 launch in 2006 I was able to acquire one before Christmas for a friend's brother who desperately wanted one and the family was unable to fetch one at the stores due to the limited quantities.)

I wont really give a grade on games until I feel I have played it enough. I feel for video game journalist's who have to play through games very quickly so that they can meet deadline and not really savior the experience of actual playing the game. Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution is Turn-Based Strategy Game from 2k Games that was released in July 2008, which means it can be readily purchased for a very good price at used game shops or brand new for a very reasonable price. The games controllers are very intuitive which is really great considering it's basically a PC based game. The game play is great, you play as different civilizations and can capture a victory in 4 forms: Domination, Cultural, Monetary, and Technology. The game has 5 difficulty levels, and the the increase in AI strategy is perfect. Some TBS experts may think it's too easy but this game isn't really for them. It's for the more casual fans.

I married Civ Rev prematurely after just experience a brief fling. I instantly went out and purchased the game after playing through the demo 3 times. But after a month long coitus we became separated. I began to cheat on it with a long laundry list of shooters. But Civ Rev doesn't really care it waited patiently for me to return. Despite my indiscretions and that I rarely listen to it (It's great to listen to pod casts while playing), It took me back with open arms. I though it knows I continue to stray it will always be there waiting for me and that's fine with me.

'Mad Men' is marriage material.

I'm really late for this ball. Not fashionably late, just oversleep for work because I was out drinking the night before late. I don't know why it took me so long to take the plunge but it is still satisfying nonetheless. I guess that's the beauty of dvd/bluray. It provides an alternative to the weekly situational viewings and instead offers a romp of pleasure. Though late to the game one can cram entire seasons into one lazy weekend to become completely infatuated with a series. Over one weekend fling I'm ready to marry 'Mad Men'.

'Mad Men' is austere in it's honesty of the relationship bound American male. Struggling to come to terms with their current states and still be the men they once were before. Same goes for the women. They may be treated like 2nd class citizen based on the period the show takes place but the character development doesn't lack anything. The show focuses mostly on 1960's Madison Avenue ad man Donald Draper (Jon Hamm) and the two women that run his life; Peggy Olsen (Elizabeth Moss) and Betty Draper (January Jones). There are other characters but the meat of the plot is dedicated to them. The show's creator Matthew Weiner came from 'The Sopranos' and it shows.

Draper is an anti-hero from the start. The cliffhanger ending of the pilot pegs the character as cheating husband who's got plenty of skeletons in his closet, but he's too likable to be completely written off as just that. Olsen is the fresh secretary to Draper who is given the ropes by the enchanting Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks). Betty Draper is the stuck in the house former model wife.

The real charm of the show comes from it's warped reflection of society in the 1960's. everyone smokes, they all drink at work, most of the men are sexist but the show pays so much attention to it's detail in set dressing and costume design that it works. All the characters and set design look the part so the viewer is never taken away from reality to call bullshit. The costume design is remarkable, Hamm and Hendricks have never made 1960 look so damn good.

Plot twists come and go but it seems like all the story arcs never overstay their welcome. This where some TV shows fail. Some shows (I'm looking at you BSG) artificially prolong plot lines to milk every last drop out of the drama. Overall the show is great and anyone who hasn't checked it out yet needs queue up 'Mad Men' on their netflix accounts, after that you'll probably end up buying it.

Rating system.

I always find it weird that review journals have a rating system where about 50% of the scale goes unused. It seems spineless, so going forward I'm going to implement a 3 category rating system for all media that is critiqued: Fuck, Marry or Kill. Married items have lasting power and are of the utmost quality. Fucked items are good for a rental or brief interlude but have too many flaws to be considered marriage material. Killed items do not merit any consideration for relationship.

...

Scared Straight.

Kidney stones are terrifying. When I have kids, I'm going to scare them straight by taking them to the hospital to witness the pain that is men passing kidney stones especially if it's anything like this. I don't know what I'll be 'Scaring them Straight' from exactly but I don't think it really matters, something will come up. 

...

Saw 'The Wrestler' again today. That film really benefits from Aronofsky's direction more than other film I've seen of late. So many other directors could have really fucked it up. I'm glad he is starting to get praise again, I loved 'The Fountain' and didn't feel the critical backlash against it was justified. As for 'The Wrestler', The first time I saw it the ending touched me an a very emotional way. But the second time I wasn't as impacted by the ending as much as I was the moments of irresponsibility by Rourke's character. We all know people like this, or are people like this. Despite their/our best intentions of making good on the people they/we care most about they/we still find ways to disappoint and hurt them. This is why the film so emotional for anyone who sees it. Aronofsky and Rourke were able to create a man who's entire persona is so completly fake, but is completely identifiable to the audience. 

 

'Bomb it' and impossible expectations

I have been fascinated with hip hop culture for as long as I can remember. Early in high school I thought this meant I had to start dressing like a 'wigger'. But as you get older you realize you can separate the music and culture you identify with and the style and dress you wear. In the post-emo world, many people will quickly realize this. Anyways... as I got older I did what I do best and geeked out on all things 'Hip-Hop'. I started listening to the 'underground' and 'indie' scenes, not really knowing what I got myself into. It quickly became an obsession, I began devouring music. And it quickly turned to other genres of music spilling into the indie rock scene that I had despised years before. While I was 'geeking out' on hip-hop I started watching documentaries based on the culture. Doug Pray's "Scratch" and Tony Silver's "Style Wars" were the mainline to the culture that I had missed, being too young or too sheltered to experience first hand, I had to digest it within the safety of my suburbian life. "Bomb It" is a modern day international version of "Style Wars". Silver's film focused on the early grafitti movement where as Reiss' film offers a brief intro to grafitti and then spans the globe searching out the movements all across the world. The interviews are good but there is no specific story or stories within the documentary, the film tries to cover the world, where it seems it would have been better served to focus on a specific city and delve deep into that story. I need to see Pray's "Infamy" to see if he's able to bring more story to this subject than Reiss did.


....


Lebron James is the man. Why? Because he lived up to the hype. Barack Obama has got some huge hype shoes to fill.

Sansa Slotmusic Player and why the iPod became so popular.

Shortly after Christmas I stopped by a Best Buy on a lark to kill some time and picked up a slotmusic Player. It was cheap ($20) and seemed like a good alternative to a iPod Shuffle. Well after forgetting it in my truck for a couple weeks I finally got around to messing with it. As the name suggests it's not exactly the same as a shuffle due to the shuffle's very limited amount of memory and zero expandability options. The SM player uses micro sd for memory and doesn't 'require' computer connectivity for use. But that's just marketing bullshit, if sandisk thinks anyone is going to buy their preloaded slotmusic cards they are out of their minds. And this is essentially the problem with SM player it doesn't connect to your computer so their is no software that streamlines the process of loading a microsd card full of music. What I ended up doing was creating playlist in iTunes that would fit onto the 4gb micro sd card I had and dragging and dropping all the tracks onto the card. As painful as that was I still had problems because of some of the tracks were so old in my iTunes library that the were still in wav format and not the mp3 format so I had to skip those tracks and pick only mp3 files.

This is why the iPod was able to dominate in the portable music player market after Sony had been on top for so long, their software was so much better than the minidisc software at the same time. I had 2 minidisc players and when I finally gave in a bought a iPod I never turned back. I continued to use my minidisc players but they eventually fell out out of my life.

After all that, I was able to fill up the card and begin using the SM player. Navigation is impossible due to no screen on the device but it wasn't and issue I was just going to use it as giant mixtape anyways with no discernable order or playlists. All in all, it is a good not great alternative to the iPod shuffle. If your like me and need the micro sd slot to future proof your player than the SM player is for you. If you need an easy player that can sync with your iTunes library without much effort than you probably spend the extra 20 bucks on that shuffle.

Super Bowl 43 is set.

Cardinals vs. Steelers. I have to believe that the Steelers will be large favorites. Should be a good game, especially when the Cardinals have the ball and the teams' two strengths go head to head.

...

On another note, I'm tired of the 1st down dive. I figured with so many teams implementing new offenses the 1st down dive would have died off by now but hasn't. It reared it's ugly head multiple times in the Ravens/Steelers game and I can't understand why. It's such a waste of a down, I know the arguments for it, (Keeps the defense honest, establishes a running game, etc) but they don't seem valid anymore. The Ravens would continually fall into a hole whenever they would run inside the tackles on 1st down. Thus letting the Steelers defense pin their ears back on 2nd and 3rd downs because they likely hood of the Ravens passing at this point drastically increased. Stop doing this. 1st down should be exploited by offensive coordinators everywhere. Not used to eek out 3-4 yards so the offense can have a little bit shorter of a field. I understand if a team wants to chew up a clock or dominate a defense then running a dive on 1st down is perfectly acceptable. If you want to run on 1st down, run a trap, or a pitch, or a sweep, get the running back on the edge make the corners and safeties start peeking into the backfield more, then a play action will be much more effective. 

And if it doesn't work out you can always run that dive on 2nd down where at least now it will be less obvious than it was before.

Battlestar Galactica Returns

"...This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper." - T.S. Eliot (The Hollow Men)

With roughly only 10 weeks left in the cultural zeitgeist to continue to make comments on humanity, Battlestar Galactica returned on friday night. I know that seems rather dour thing to say but it's true. This is what BSG has done to me. It has barely any time left and it is still left preaching to the choir. 

I recently purchased every single dvd box set for BSG just because I hadn't done so yet and because my cousin had a peaked interest in getting into the series. So after a couple of visit's to ebay and amazon, I was able to assemble a collection to start letting him borrow. Of course I watched the miniseries and began rewatching the series from the beginning. 

BSG hasn't been the best show on television, but it has been the best show no one is watching. This would seem to be a problem, but the show is going to be able to run it's course without becoming to bloated by television executives. BSG hasn't had a giant budget and huge ratings to prevent it from coming to it's eventual conclusion. Imagine if BSG had 'Lost' ratings, Do you think it would be ending this year? 

(Possible Spoilers Ahead)

As for the new episode... I thought it was great. I don't really believe who the final cyclon was revealed as. I thought the Dualla stuff was very emotional, and needed to happen to show the impact of what has happened to the people of the fleet. Starbuck's story line is interesting and wish their had more of Baltar's story. Overall great, lots of info on earth revealed very quickly.