Smart(er) Media Consumption: October 2012

Monday, October 29, 2012

There is nothing here. I was working on a project today. I watched a little bit of Arrested Development while I was procrastinating.

Lesson of the day. Don't procrastinate. Then you can do things better.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Youtube... Beatuiful Losers Cont.

To start I'd like you all to listen to some guitar that was featured in Breaking Bad.

I finished Beautiful Losers today. I wasn't as inspired by the ending as I was by the beginning. I must have turned it off right around the end of the climax thus leaving my previous viewing uninspired.

The artists discussed exactly what became of their art and friendship and passion. They went over the commercial aspect of the industry. It wasn't anything different from where they came from really... Most of them started with making magazines or skateboard decks or signs...

My father was a chef. He taught me incredible things. Most importantly he taught me to take pride me in my work not just as a cook but as an artist. When you serve someone food you are not just serving them the food but also the presentation. It is why ketchup is red and not purple and why margarine was originally sent with a dye pack that you broke so it became yellow like butter. It is why they add pink dye to beef in the grocery store. Because we are driven by beauty and by what looks good.

I watched two shorts out of a three part movie entitled The Fourth Dimension (how three directors interact with the task of make a short about the fourth dimension). Harmony Korine of the Spring Breakers fame directed the first part and it stars Val Kilmer. Aleksei Fedorchenko directs the second short and is shot in Russian.

How do we interact with space and time? Albert Einstein said, "Take a point, stretch it into a line, curl it into a circle, twist it into a sphere, and punch through the sphere." What does this mean? Hawking described it as the universe operating in and of itself completely self-contained essentially not doing anything other than being. This idea that the past, present, and future don't exist. We exist on a non-linear plane. Time is an invention.

I describe things not nearly as well as someone else can.

I put it into the idea that the fourth dimension is where God exists.

Okay, moving on...

Inspiration is coming and going. Waxing and waning. I am becoming more content with where I am. This is my ninth post. I am becoming comfortable with this.

Here's Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd to finish the post off.

Beaitful Losers and living one life in Multiple Realities

It's funny how I can get more views on one youtube video yet I'm so much more impressed watching my blog views increase as I post another entry.

I'm watching Beautiful Losers. I'm halfway through and couldn't take it anymore. The themes explored via these relatively unknown artists (but aren't most artists unknown?) really is connecting with me.

My entire life I've felt the push and pull of my faith culture (church, family, religion) and my lifestyle culture (friends, school, education, family, emotions). In high school I'd hang out with kids on all kinds of drugs getting up to no good doing crazy things, skateboarding, vandalizing, breaking things, lighting stuff on fire. Then I'd go to youth group on Friday nights sometimes with the same guys and we'd talk about faith and God.

I always remember hearing the made-up devotional stories about the kid who noticed the other kid in church being two-faced. Y'know he'd see him in church being told how nice he is by all the old ladies and singing in the choir then on Monday he'd see the kid in the smokers pit telling dirty jokes with the other smokers... At the end of the story the question was always. Are you a two-faced Christian? I always felt so convicted by that... That idea of being two-faced. With my friends at school I certainly acted and talked different but people always new my faith side of life. They knew I did church stuff and that I didn't smoke dope because it was "against my religion" and I respected my parents and stuff but they respected it in a way that has been rarely felt since.

They saw who I was. I was never two-faced but to an outsider church kid who only saw me one way I was consider a hypocrite and a lying bastard (true story actually). After the animosity was felt and they talked to me the walls came down, apologies were made, and friendship was formed.

I grew up in many worlds but emerged as one person. Funny how that works. I learned how to work hard, I learned how to be peaceful, and I learned how to survive through tough times, and I learned how to keep my faith through all of it.

The kids I met in high school will forever keep me changed.

I rarely hung out with church kids at high school... Why? No one let anything through. When I spent time with my friends that weren't "good" I'd share in life with them. We'd talk about the stuff we went through the night before and it wasn't about how annoying homework is... It was about our parents... Our parents sucked... Yeah, I know typical teenager lameness... It wasn't until I had a friend tell me about her mother smoking crack and running around the house screaming. Sobering stuff.... I identified with that. My dad was going through a percocett addiction after heart surgery... He was screaming at night too...

So I'm stuck at this point... I'm stuck in this point where my life is one but is in multiple worlds again. My career is in the middle of church and film. I'm being told to marry them together...

I want too but the rational brain of mine tells me I can't... I can't make a career out of it. Yeah, there may be a few guys out there doing it but what do I have to offer?

This kid... inspired by Harmony Korine, Ed Templeton, Rob Bell, Francis Chan, Peter Rollins, Slavoj Zizek, Quentin Tarantino, Shephard Fairey, Stanley Kubrick... So many opposing personalities come together in my brain and don't come out with anything fantastic. Just a confused mess.

The thing is I'm slowly working on it. Are you? I know you are... take it from me, it just takes time.

So... in conclusion watch Beautiful Losers... You won't be sorry. It's on youtube as well as netflix (you have no excuse)

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

I'm tired... But It Must be Told. Greedy Businessman, Absconding Atheism, The Raven

Essentially I am now going to attempt to create a sorts of Input/Output documentation through this blog and let the public eye examine, destruct, construct, and consume my thoughts.

I'm tired and I don't want to do this, but I'm sticking to it because I said I would... Oh and the first story I saw this morning hit me in a strange way... I'm talking about the Windsor to Detroit bridge that I found out about today in the national post (story)... It straight up reads like a story about Scrooge McDuck. The guy (a self-made billionaire) owns the Ambassador bridge (the only bridge into Michigan) and makes millions of dollars a year in tolls because he holds a monopoly. This guy doesn't want another bridge connecting Canada to Detroit (FYI Canada is paying for most of the costs sans US Border Crossing building). So since the guy doesn't want it to happen what has he done? Helped draft up a public vote for cross-border bridge building for the entire state of Michigan! Pretty diabolical huh? Want some more ammo? The guy is misconstruing the facts about this bridge building project with a tv ad series airing right across the state.

Mr. America is trying to tell people the money is better off spent on schools and roads in Michigan. It's a shame the money is coming from Canada...i.e. not Michigan's money to spend.

I also read about atheists today... In an article from salon.com this guy is against atheists with superiority complexes and consider them to be just as terrible as the evangelicals that he escaped from.

Essentially he calls for people to move beyond their faith and belief systems and embrace people as people with the ability to do great things when they rally around causes with that their faith supports.

Of course nothing is better than the comments section of opinion based websites so I spend as much time reading the comments as I do the article. Here's a selection of comments...

Geowalk07:There are, what? TWO or THREE well known antagonistic atheists and this threatens to divide people? Virtually every other atheist is quite mum on the subject until/unless cornered by antagonistic religious zealotry or driven to be vocal about it by the threat of religion-based policy that threatens to curb our rights.

Reply from goeswithness: He wasn't limiting his remarks to the famous people. What everyone does and how everyone views others - even if they keep their mouths shut - influences the atmosphere of the world we live in. Hatefulness is toxic to the hater.

And let's not even talk about the toxic atheism in Salon comments.

reply from Geowalk07: There are no atheists standing on street corners screaming at believers; there are no atheists knocking on my door on Sunday mornings or holidays, asking to come into my home to preach; there are no atheists sending missionaries out to the hinterlands to convert "heathens" to their point of view. Atheists are completely unrepresented in local and federal governments; they have no political power (yet), but their mere existence is viewed as a threat by believers, and, "heaven" forbid, should someone mention that they do not believe any gods they are viewed as being antagonistic.

Are you saying that even when silent, atheists are being antagonistic simply because they hold a minority view and live, act and vote according to that view? Is merely being atheist an antagonistic act?

If someone asks, I will tell them that I do not believe in their god. If, in a public setting, someone is pushing for religiously based policy changes that threaten to impinge on my rights, I will speak up. Why should atheism, of all philosophical views, remain hidden? Are the beliefs of the religious so tenuous, so fragile, that they cannot withstand any sort of push-back?

The conversation continues over on the website.... Seriously read internet comments! They're great!

I watched Daybreakers, starring Ethan Hawke as vampire with morals, Willem Defoe as hick cured vampire who creeps me out, and Sam Neill as big bad corporate businessman. Ethan Hawke is a scientist trying to find a blood substitute as there is a blood supply crisis (hint: oil) and meets a group of surviving humans and Willem Defoe who cures himself from vampirism by quickly exposing himself from sunlight and submerging himself in water to put the flames out. I don't think it's worth a watch.

I also watched The Raven starring Vicent Price as the protagonist magician, Boris Karloff as the antagonist magician, and Peter Lorre (Igor) as comic relief magician and young (and attractive) Jack Nicholson as Peter Lorre's son. The chemistry between these three actors is freakin awesome and I am ashamed to say I fell asleep in the middle of the movie because classical music really soothes me.

The best they could do for Special Effects.... At leas they tried.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Headphones, Egalitarianism, MacTrackPads, and still playing Borderlands 2.

Lesson learned... Understand what you say yes to. At least it wasn't a virus.

I know some youtube personalities and other bloggers have been accused/looked down upon for utilizing reddit as an easy content grabbing platform. Luckily I'm not trying to be fresh with my content. The goal of this blog is to simply interact with the daily media I consume. It's a journal of sorts. Of stuff that I see on a daily basis that makes me think and entertains me.

Today on reddit I was mostly intrigued by the r/MensRights community as well as the r/egalitarianism community. Working within church environments has given me some great opportunities to see first hand people's opinions. I've grown up on one side of the coin where the belief was that women do not belong in leadership roles as well as the side that everyone should have the opportunity. So there's a couple articles I read like the interestingly titled "The Scarlet Manifesto: The Rise of the Adulterous Woman" which covered some interesting trends between men and women within marriage infidelity. I also read half an article which covers what seems to me almost every popular opinion/counter-opinion on men's issues. It's good, but it is long and fairly basic. (more of an outline than anything).

I also helped a guy out on reddit on how to consume his music media best via headphones. By giving him a small opinion of my Shure SH240. My opinion? They sound amazing and are great for reference audio in video and sound editing. They get uncomfortable after a couple hours of use and have to be modded. If you are in the market for a decently priced (<$150) pair of cans I recommend 'em. Just make sure you add some padding to the headband.

Speaking of music, I was recommended to check Wye Oak out...

her vocals are mildly reminiscent of Dave Matthews to me. Should that be considered an insult?
According to the comments they were heard on the Walking Dead.

I also played a crap-tonne of Borderlands 2 today.... Something I'm not entirely sure that I should be proud of. I'm not in high school anymore so it definitely can't be considered an accomplishment. I made it to level 20 and attempted to rescue my ally Mordecai's pet bird from the stories antagonist (Handsome Jack) but Handsome Jack killed the bird and then Mordecai got mad but since Handsome Jack was on what is essentially an untouchable moon base Mordecai could only shoot a whole bunch of Handsome Jack's robots. Yeah... cool huh... Anyway that's like 3% of the story and I have to say that I'm really getting into this one. So far we've had our robot guide "Angel" double cross us, the bird incident and the rescue of the rebel forces captain. I'm also fairly certain I had one of those Avatar moments where Sully rides the crazy hawk-beast after I killed Handsome Jack's personal bodyguard robot "Wilhelm". The whole time I was fighting it I had my rebel allies on the radio saying, "He's too powerful for any of us! There's no way you can do it!"

I'd give you a screenshot but I'm running it through a mac... (hint: it's not designed to be run through a mac) So just trust me when I say I have a really awesome pistol that shoot exploding bullets.

So what have I learned today? What is the common theme? I dunno... I guess I see women a lot. Wye Oaks has a woman singer, women are being talked about a lot, well that's two points but whatever I wasted too much time on Borderlands 2 to make myself think a lot. I think the general idea today is to just continuously research and ingest new ideas into my head. I'm trying to open myself up to new areas of exploratory practice and I'm really truly trying to avoid the nonsensical posting of reddit (r/aww r/funny r/WTF) y'know the stuff that puts me on the same level as a mindless infomercial watcher (which I totally did as a child)

Anyway to finish things off tonight I recommend checking out some more Wye Oak

Monday, October 22, 2012

Over the Rainbow, Past The Debate, listen to more Salvoj Zizek + Borderlands 2

She's been told she still has a bright future.

I think CBC has finally found something appealing to a Canadian audience! Unlike Canadian Idol or the [country]...Got Talent franchises this contest offers something tangible to the contestants. Not the hopes of possible fame and fortune but rather the chance to be part of something they've always wanted to do. The show has taken a fairly normal process of auditioning for a part in a musical but has upped the ante by putting it in the hands of the audience. I was learning about making media interactive with the audience in class and this could possibly be a great way to bringing theatre into this line as well.

The debate was also on tonight. Romney did his usual "I think this is a good idea." and Obama usually retorted with "You are a liar and confusing because you said three weeks ago that this was a bad idea." then Romney would come back with "Nuh-uh, you're just attacking me and not talking about the issue" then Obama would say "Yeah-huh you're a liar!" then the moderator would come and say "all righty next question then" They are some master debaters right there.

Best line of the night? Well there was a few: "The 1980s called, it wants it foreign policy back" (in response to Romney's belief that Russia is the United States' biggest threat.) Also, both debaters were obsessed with whose arms should be placed in the hands of unarmed rebel forces in foreign lands (yeah, it got nonsensical at times). Key point here? It's okay to say "We want to give weapons to the citizens so that they can have a revolution" Not really "binders full of women" but close enough.

You can arm the hand of a rebel soldier and also hand arms to rebels...
or just give 'em weapons.

The debate mostly centered around foreign policy and as the commentators at the end mused it was pretty dry and they agreed on most things but really lit up when they got talking about the economy.
That was great. I have an idea for Obama so that more people could understand why he was so intent on raising funding for education and research based on a conversation he had with the late Steve Jobs...in response to bringing manufacturing jobs back "Those jobs simply aren't coming back".

I believe if Obama could say he wants a highly educated population so that the U.S. can arm each citizen with thinking and doing at the same time he could be capable of bringing the U.S. into line as filling a void between manufacturing sector and idea sector. Simply put Obama wants America to find a new niche in the world economy as the forefront of research and development.

Slavoj Zizek came back into my world of thought right before I started righting this blog with some new ideaologies about "greenwashing" and ecology with a video animated by RSA Animate. It's ten minutes.

Here's the rundown. Zizek believes that charity essentially sucks. But we're stuck at the crux of charity being necessary. He falls in line with Peter Rollins ideal that instead of focusing on bandaging the issue we need to treat the disease. Instead of finding a way to prolong life we need to improve the life that we have.

He also talks about Toms and Starbucks. I know people love Toms and Starbucks...

This all stemmed from a post on reddit about this commercial...

All of these media things today are talking about 'revolutionizing' as their primary goal... Points to consider as it seems that's our buzzword for the day!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Viewing movies, and Cracked...

Of course a lot of it is done on iPads and computers....

So what are we missing out on? Well the amount of selection for *TV show* media we have today is like the equivalent of going to a grocery store when we're hungry. There's is so much we don't know what to do and we often find ourselves getting into things we may not need/not the best for us and we might be consuming whatever is easiest to digest. I've started about a dozen television shows on Netflix and have finished a grand total of 0 series since.

Just something to think about...

Also read a cracked.com article from one of my favourite authors, John Cheese, about reading and writing funny resumes. I kind of consider myself a semi-expert of getting a job seeing as I've succeeded 5/6 times I've ever attempted to get one... Not to be proud or anything but hey! It's the friggin' internet. I can proudly say I've never pretended to be a gun expert or martial arts expert of YouTube.

It's okay guys... really... it's okay

Oh I watched that Arrested Development episode where Buster loses his hand... Friggin awesome.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Reading Reddit, Viewing Vice, Loving Learning, Borderlands 2

Romney also said the only way for illegal immigrant kids to gain the right of citizenship is to join the army....

Oddly enough I found myself not on reddit as much today simply because I didn't want to process the information! My behaviour in media consumption has already changed over the course of one day.

In the afternoon I swung on over to Vice.com to check out their latest articles... Apart from their various fashion articles, really strange how-to guides, and ecletic taste in music I find a lot of their journalism to be covering articles that matter to me (a white guy in his 20s who's life is mostly exposed to suburban culture)... They had this great video series that started on Monday entitled Fresh Off the Beat with Eddie Huang... The first episode was great. We're introduced to chef Eddie Huang who goes out to a ranch with a biker to hunt some rabbits. Through the video chef Eddie Huang learns about the disconnect of eating meat and slaughtering the animals and we get to observe hipsters shooting guns... Seriously check this video out... Please...

Did you watch this yet?

In netflix-topia I watched the first 20 minutes of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1976) starring Clint 'Dirty Harry' Eastwood as Thunderbolt and Jeff Bridges as Lightfoot. It's the tale of a car thief Lightfoot picking up 'target for assassination' Reverend Thunderbolt along the side of a country road. As Thunderbolt and Lightfoot arrive into town and began to pick up women for sex I promptly fell asleep....

I'll have to watch it some other time...

Nevertheless I found Jeff Bridges hilarious as a young, overzealous, and egotistical man being and being paired up with Eastwood's no-nonsense Reverend with a sordid past coming to light, the two had some great moments within the introduction to the movie. I recommend watching it if your into movies from the 70s as I am (Dirty Harry and The Godfather are from this decade) then I recommend giving it a view.

I'm also working my way through the second season of Arrested Development. I don't what I can say that hasn't already been said but I believe Tobias "I just blue myself" Funke seems to be getting better and better every single episode! Although I'm kinda missing the interactions between Michael Jr. and Maybe...

Anyway last but not least I got Borderlands 2 running on my Mac without bootcamp. The story starts out with you on a space planet "Pandora" and your trying to find the magical 'Vault' which has loads of treasure but as your riding on your way to gain employment for a mercenary named 'Handsome Jack' he blows up your train. After just surviving the explosion you are rescued by a 'claptrap' (think talking R2D2) and now you are required to kill monsters, bandits, and other mercenaries while accepting fetch quests from unlikely allies. You can better understand what I'm talking about via this dubstep soundtracked trailer for the game.

I play it because of the obsessive collecting of guns and shields. There are literally 400,000 shield combinations. I have this weird thing with games that feature collecting various items... Yep, MapleStory, Torchlight, Diablo, Borderlands, Fallout, Elder Scrolls... the list goes on. I like collecting things and maximizing my in game character's combat potential... If you give me a game with stats I'm happy as a duck in a pond.

Why finish the post with a duck? It's my blog... I do what I want.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Adventureland, Youtube, Slavoj Žižek, Sufjan Stevens

With all the media (read: books, music, internet, movies, tv) that I find my consuming on a daily basis I have decided to start keeping record of how my mind is interacting with all of these inputs. So now you the reader will be subjected to my run-on sentences and mindless mumblings in completely rough form.

Essentially I am now going to attempt to create a sorts of Input/Output documentation through this blog and let the public eye examine, destruct, construct, and consume my thoughts.

I just finished watching Adventureland... It's a movie starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, and Bill Hader. A movie set in '87 and introduces us to James (Eisenberg) a virgin who wants to travel across Europe with his buds before his first year of college studying journalism at Columbia University (Ivy League). However he finds out his dad got demoted and now his parents can't afford to help him cover the cost of the trip OR his university costs. James gets a job at the local amusement park Adventureland and meets Em (Stewart) a girl who has a penchant for the married maintenance guy (Reynolds) who's claim to fine and opening line is "I jammed with Lou Reed once" to every girl he meets.

Essentially a love story these two go through the wonders of teenage angst, love, boredom and cheating hearts I found myself oddly attracted to the relationships on screen. James' and Em's relationship on screen at first glance was pretty mellow with the occasional small conversation, love for music, and makeout sessions. It was a pretty muted relationship I have to admit, but hey, Stewart plays her character perfect (a stoic girl who's dealing with the loss of a mother, a clueless dad, a weird stepmom, and in a relationship with a guy that is no good). Eisenberg on the other hand is a little uncomfortable in his role with Stewart (as every guy in high school is with relationships) and has much better chemistry with the other guys on screen.

That's all I wanted to say about Adventureland... Watch the movie it's on Netflix
.

There's this other documentary I came across on Netflix entitle Examined Life. It aired on TVO a few years ago and is basically a collection of 8 segments of 10 minute clips with modern philosophers talking about various modern issues and such. I watched it a few weeks ago and there's a clip with Slavoj Žižek. He discusses what will we do with the things we want to ignore (he talks about the subject matter in a dump). His basic argument starts with not confronting the nature of our world we live in moves to his theory of ecology being the moralistic and religious opium of the masses (like reilgion was to Marx) and ends with the general premise of love, if/when we marry/love another human being we do not attempt to change them and their shortcoming but rather embrace them as the failed human that they are so should we embrace nature and the development of the world.

Yeah, cool stuff.

Finally I've been listening to Sufjan Stevens the past two days and his new Christams stuff is out including his "Christmas Unicorn" Song.

And to finish off the day I've also been on Reddit looking at stupid pictures of cats, that dude that parachuted with RedBull sponsoring him, and various Romney criticisms. I'd link to the stuff but anyone reading this probably has already seen it....

This is the first animal picture (3rd from the top) on the front page... Yay Upvoting....

If anyone that reads this could point any obvious errors in my writing skills it'd be great.

- Korbyn the Smart(er) Media Consumer