Category: Robert’s Blog

Occupy Whatever

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I had thought that the whole occupy Wall Street thing had lost all its steam but then some cop had go and kick it up a notch by spraying a little peppery spice. Bam! All the sudden pepper spray policeman has become a rallying point for the OWS supporters. I suppose this is good for the cause, because, frankly, up until now they haven’t had any sort of unifying message around which to rally. Personally, despite my general agreement about wall street bailouts and corporate cronyism,  I never was a big fan of the movement. It seems to be yet another iteration of standard decades-old lefty memes mixed with the usual chanting and hackneyed street theater. Okay, you dislike corporatism and wealth inequities, but how does camping out all night for weeks on end make your point—other than leading to the inevitable conflict with “The Man?” That seems to be the end game of all these lefty protests. Wear out your welcome, then incite some sort of police confrontation and maybe you’ll get some (literal) kick-ass images you and your bearded hipster pals being dragged away by the boys in blue. But this is just that aforementioned street theater. Unless you are showing civil disobedience over not being allowed to camp in a city park, your point is lost. The vague demands of OWS could just as easily and effectively be made during normal business hours and you could use your evenings for spending time with your family or showering.

Remember When…

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Ok, so this is my response to this thing that’s been passed around Facebook for the past few months. The original says, “Remember When Teachers, Public Employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS Crashed The Stock Market, Wiped Out Half Of Our 401Ks, Took Trillions In Taxpayer Funded Bail Outs, Spilled Oil In The Gulf Of Mexico, Gave Themselves Billions In Bonuses, And Paid No Taxes? Yeah, Me Neither… Pass It On.”

My first response was, “Well yes, as a matter of fact, I do remember when Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS didn’t pay taxes.” But that sorta misses the point. I suppose the message here is that those nasty teabaggers and other fiscally conservative-types are demonizing these wonderful institutions while corporations are running rampant and ruining the country (nevermind that it was the corporate bailouts and crony capitalism that sparked the whole tea party movement in the first place).

My real issue with the meme is that it is a textbook example of a straw man argument. Nobody on the other side is accusing teachers, etc. of these sorts of awful things. All that is being called for is a little budgetary restraint. Is asking public employees to tighten their belts (like everyone else in the private sector already has) that horrible? Aren’t PBS, NPR and Planned Parenthood valuable enough institutions that they can survive without the small percentage of federal dollars they take in? Geesh. Lighten up lefties.

2010 Best of the Year

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Well it’s the first day of the New Year. This day means different things to different people. For my wife it means washing off the post-New-Year’s-Eve-bash Sharpie moustache that she woke up with this morning. For me it means it’s time to assess what I thought was the best of the media I consumed this past year.

Movies

Like last year, there really wasn’t anything that truly amazed me this year. My best rated films were Moon and The Maltese Falcon. I watched more T.V. than I have in recent years, so I suppose I could add Lost, V or The Walking Dead as honorable mentions.

Books

Towards the second half of the year I started reading a bit more than usual and found several books truly grabbed me in ways that no movie or show did this year. If I had to pick a favorite from this year it would be George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, especially if considered along side the three other books in the series that I also read and loved. At a near-tie for the number one spot is Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind, which started my on my current fantasy lit kick. Finally, rounding out the top was Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem. Honorable mentions would go to Mistborn books 1 & 2, Devil Born Without Horns and Racing the Beam.

Video Games

House of the Dead: Overkill Box Art

I played a ton of games this year. My highest rated game was House of the Dead: Overkill for the Wii. It was stupid, crude, violent and hilarious… loved it. My runners-up would be Mass Effect and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Mass Effect further proves that the best science fiction is in video games these days, and Zelda is Zelda… ’nuff said. I am still mid-game in GTA IV and Metroid Prime Trilogy but I suspect those two titles would have made this year’s list too had I completed them in time. I also played a few casual games I liked such as Puzzle Quest and Plants vs. Zombies.

Steam just finished their massive annual game sale and I stocked up so there should be no shortage of gaming for me in the next year and beyond.

Download Martian Law Music!

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With the demise of Drop.io I have had to find a new place to offer MP3s of my musical project, Martian Law. In the process, I have rearranged the site a bit and given all my releases their own pages: The Exciting Sounds of a Compaq P133 and Upgrade Downgrade. I have also added a new track for download from the 2002’s Lumpenwave 80s cover compilation.

Liberal Rage

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Oh my. Most of my buddies on Facebook lean leftwards and I am anticipating an explosion of liberal rage come Tuesday evening. They can’t seem to shut up talking about Christine O’Donnell, or whoever the right-wing boogeyman of the moment happens to be, while completely ignoring the main gripe of over-reaching government that is going to swing this election.  I will try to document the “gosh, Americans are stupid” and “Somehow this is still Bush’s fault” nonsense and publish it here. If the Democrats pull off a miracle and keep the house, I will be knee deep in standard liberal gloat. Either way, should be fun.