Regarding Kanye and Bush

I'm declaring the song for the last two weeks to be Cyberwaste by Fear Factory; one week each for Kanye West and George Bush. Not a perfect fit since neither is a blogger, but it's close enough.

NOTHING!

YOU SAY!

MATTERS!

TO US!

I noticed something disturbing while watching the various Matt Lauer clips; Bush and West have the exact same problem. They both seem to be reasonably intelligent. At the same time they are completely and utterly oblivious to so many things. It's like they're mild psychopaths [warning: wikipedia]. I don't mean that in the stereotypical sense of the raving lunatic archetype; sometimes they just don't understand how they affect other people.

Feingold 2016! (Updated)

Okay, so Feingold is probably never going to run again. He was an amazing senator who I deeply respect; I think the nation is weaker now that he has lost the election.

I want to thank him for his service and wish him the best of luck in whatever comes next in his life.

Hopefully Ron Johnson will prove to be capable of living up to Feingold's legacy.

And maybe hyenas will learn to play Homeworld.

*UPDATE* : For the record, my quip at the end isn't quite as petty as it probably sounds. Hyenas are probably some of the coolest animals ever in my opinion; if hyenas could sing I'd definitely be in a Khanate tribute band with some of them.

All in the way of saying that it's not meant as an insult. It's intended as pure pessimism about something that would be cool.

Randomized Dissonant Cognitions (or..uh, something)

I was planning on writing a bunch of posts about the election; I guess I've simply become too burned out when it comes to politics. Writing about video games and music is much more fun than politics or social issues lately.

This is only the second major election I'll get to vote in. Maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention in the past, but I honestly never thought I'd see the type of insanity that is consuming the elections this year. During the 2004 election I thought it was ridiculous that Howard Dean was discounted as unelectable because of his 'yee-hah' moment.

I wish we could go back to that type of thinking.

One candidate I'm particularly displeased with is Ron Johnson. It's probably unfair for me to single him out. Nonetheless there is plenty to be disgusted with.

Check out the video on the "Meet Ron Johnson" page. It's all of the nauseating rhetoric you could possibly hope for from conservative talk radio, neatly repackaged as a political... something. It's not a bio, it's not an endorsement; the video gives me a creepy 'propaganda' vibe.

*updated again (4/7/11)* See this post for important information about the next section!

Especially distasteful is what Charlie SYKES [sic] has to say at the 2:20 mark. Actually, it's a little after that, but 2:20 is where you should start.

I always felt that my personal freedom would be protected. I could trust that our constitutional checks and balances would work. But then a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the 2008 election.

You'll miss the reference if you're not familiar with Sue Williams's well known "A Funny Thing Happened" [MASSIVE trigger warning].

I don't see how there can be any doubt that Mr. SYKES was alluding to that drawing. The wording of what he said fits perfectly and is too awkward to simply be something he'd say in that context. Is he saying that the 2008 election was as bad as rape? Probably, it's well documented that many conservative media figures like to use rape metaphors to describe liberals and progressives.

I doubt that Ron Johnson even knows enough about feminist artwork to understand the reference. I find it harder to believe that nobody in his campaign caught that while they were reviewing content to use in the video. But even if they're all cheerfully oblivious I'm still disgusted that they would seriously consider SYKES to be a good person to go with.

Also worrying is the "Preserving Wisconsin Values" section on his site, which reads thusly:

“I’m a pretty traditional guy. I believe in a culture of life, and I believe marriage is between one man and one woman.” – Ron Johnson

Ron is pro-life, pro-family, and believes that freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from religion. Ron will take these principles with him to Washington and will stand up to those who would attack these cherished traditional values.

Ron is an avid fisherman and outdoorsman who believes strongly in maintaining a clean and healthy environment. He believes Wisconsin’s sporting traditions and the Constitution’s 2nd Amendment should be protected.

Ron and Jane have been married for 32 years and together they have three children.

Hey Ron, Utah is that way.

Also, what the fuck does "freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion" even mean? How can you have one without the other? And this man has a good chance of being my senator *shudders*

A few Random Final Notes. I've been rereading Orwell's 1984 and listening to Meshuggah's Obzen (the link is to the album's lyrics) and generally have been thinking about cognitive dissonance a lot lately.

I love violent videogames, books, movies, and music. I deplore the casual use or acceptance of actual violence. I spend a lot of time analyzing the rhetoric people use and absolutely despise hypocrites.

I'm not sure what to think about all of that. After I've had more time to think I want to write something much more in-depth on the topic. For now I'm just going to presume the power to dedicate Meshuggah's song "Combustion" (off of the afore-mentioned album) to this year's conservatives. And possibly to myself o_O

Also, what's up with drinking bleach? I thought that was just a funny Metalocalypse sketch.

*updated* : originally wrote that Johnson was running for governor; actually should have read senator.

Song of the Week: "Black Night"

My previous post inspired me to declare this week's song to be Black Night. Of course I'm not referring to Deep Purple's classic single; I'm talking about Deicide's cover of Deep Purple's classic single. And I'm assuming the authority to dedicate that song to none other than the Legendary Yukio Futatsugi himself (I'd link to a better interview but I'm too lazy to find one right now, I'll probably update that link later).

Why am I picking this song and that Legendary Figure? Partly because both are amazing; partly because the original Black Night was written in a drunken stupor when Deep Purple's record company demanded something to be released as a single and Yukio Futatsugi's last game at Microsoft Game Studios (Phantom Dust) received equally callous treatment.

Mostly though it's because things just don't feel right when Yukio isn't crafting his masterpieces. Fortunately there is always hope; sometimes we all we have to do is be patient.

Too Little Too Late

I really enjoyed playing the first Assassin's Creed. The gameplay certainly wasn't very refined, but the game was, nonetheless, much more interesting than most of the other releases that year.

I still haven't played the sequel due to the fact that I've somehow accumulated quite the pile of books and video games that I intend to get around to someday. Assuming that the second one is any good I suppose I'll eventually get around to playing the upcoming Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood too. So when I saw some of commercials such as this one that show off the exclusive character you receive if you pre-order the game from GameStop it suddenly became very tempting to do just that.

The trailer in the above link isn't very good but the Harlequin character that it showcases is completely dementedly violent. And that's awesome.

Here is the problem though: it pisses me off that not everyone is going to get to play that character. Feel free to call me old-fashioned but I think that a video-game should be like a book or a movie; the core experience should be the same no matter which copy you have access to. I don't have a problem with receiving bonuses along with the game if you buy a special version; the 'journal' for Dr. Halsey that came with my copy of Halo Reach is, to put it delicately, fucking awesome.

When they start cutting up the game and packaging small parts of it so that they can only ever be obtained by specific customers who do business with the correct corporation at the correct time my bullshit meter freaks out though. Yes, they have every right to do that. Yes, it's not going to stop any time soon if ever.

I still refuse to play along with it though. So I'm not going to pre-order the game from GameStop or anywhere else that runs this same scheme.

Unless it's a new Panzer Dragoon game. I loves me my Panzer Dragoon.

So it was slightly delayed.

Only a few random things today.

On the right there should be a picture. Did you find it? Very good!

In the rather classy 'lounge lizard' mug is my morning coffee. Since I don't have access to an espresso machine right now I've been experimenting with a few different ways of making things interesting. A lot of the time I'll just drink my coffee black; lately though I've been mixing in some cocoa, cane sugar, cinnamon, whole milk, and ginger with REALLY strong coffee. It doesn't really matter what order or in what ratio you mix those things, it's pretty hard to go wrong with those ingredients.

On the right is my music player with a lovely snippet of the album cover from Anaal Nathrakh's excellent "In the Constellation of the Black Widow." And with that I will now rather tactfully make a smooth transition to the next segment of this post....

I've decided that just for fun I'm gonna start doing a 'Song of the Week' segment where I take it upon myself to dedicate a song to someone; this will also give me a reason to make sure I post at least one thing every week.

This week's song is the pleasantly titled Between Shit and Piss We Are Born. I know that most people are not going to like that type of extreme metal; that's okay, we're not going to judge you too harshly :P

Because of the song's refrain ("Are you satisfied it's unto shit that you return? / are you happy that it is in piss that you drown?") I'm dedicating that song to the members of this fraternity at Yale. If you want to revel in your own filth that's fine, but who the fuck do you think you're impressing*?

And that's all for now! gl hf

update: *Well; at least I'm self-conscious about it.

Beyond the End

Btw: NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I've known about that for a while now; slipped my mind to post something. Red Harvest was an amazing band and I wish its members the best of luck with the rest of their lives.

I guess that means I should stop using their songs as a source of ideas for post titles...

update: If you are into extreme/progressive metal then you need to watch this video.

This one is also cool; audio isn't great but I believe it shows their last performance ever.