The official website of the University paper is now up and running (BTW, is it as slow for the rest of you as it is for me?). The PDF download feature is really good, and now that I’ve got access to the site itself, I hope to be able to improve it so that it really becomes something cool. We’ve got a lot of features planned for the future, so even if you aren’t a student at the university or live within 1000 miles of Manitoba, visit and enjoy!
OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THINGS I READ FOR SCHOOL: Plato was the first fan fiction writer…and also the first self-insert fan fiction writer. Socrates, who spouts Plato’s ideas in the same Mary Sue makes Captain Kirk confess his love of Spock, is always the center of attention, and everyone else always agrees with him (“Yes…That sounds about right…can’t argue with that”). There are more complex things in his work, but I could never get over the fact that it felt like I was reading Socrates Savez the Wrold!!1111
Something that you learn from news writing: make every word count. Nothing kills purple prose better than having to distill everything to something pure and direct. It means that, even when writing fiction or something a little bit more stylistic, you know how to do it in the most efficient way possible.
It has also helped me with my editing skills. Huzzah!
Sorry, I won’t be writing a review for either new game I’ve been playing. That seems to happen a lot with me. Reviews just aren’t my thing, you know? Plus, it’s not even my job to do these things, so there! Guilt-Free.
Pointless comic book thought: The Green Goblin is the goofiest archvillain in comics. Although the armor in the movie also looked goofy (why does it have a face on the helmet?), they were obviously pretty much stuck when it came to the character’s visual. There’s no way a man in a D&D costume could be taken seriously as a threat, even in a silly supherhero way.
You can really tell that the Goblin’s status as a major villain in Spider-Man lore was added on a rather random basis (which it really was). In his first appearance, he really wasn’t anything more than another one of the ‘themed’ villains that Spidey had been facing up to that point. But then they decided to make him Norman Osborn, and then later decided to make him kill Gwen Stacy, thus turning a supremely silly character into a ‘memorable villain’. Really, they could have used any of the other major figures in the Spider-Man lore and turn them into the ‘archenemy’ as well…Electro, Rhino, Scorpion…or maybe even Mendel Stromm.
Someone once told me that Doctor Octopus makes a lot more sense as Spider-Man’s opposite number, and now I really do agree with that. The thematic logic just makes sense (not only that both are scientists using a scientific accident for different purposes, but also because both are named after animals with eight arms), and Doc Ock is more believable as a manipulator and major schemer (which I’m pretty sure he has been in the past) than Osborn/Green Goblin.
So, all in all, fuck the Green Goblin.
The traffic tracker has made me awful. Now I check it all the time to see how many suckers I’ve lured here. Before, I didn’t care at all! Soon I will whore myself out to the highest bidder if only to reach the sacred 20 hits a day!
I see that someone has me on Google Reader. Every new update must be terribly disappointing.
Statements that infuriate me (and are tangentially related to this surprisingly popular post):
“Just wait for the sequel” and “They’re saving it for the sequel”
These are usually employed when people find that the latest thing doesn’t have everything they wanted, in an effort to temper disappointment. Sequels do often happen, so why do I dislike these kinds of reactions?
Sequels DO happen, but the first one is showing a little too much optimism, and is only setting themselves up for even more disappointment if a sequel is never made. It’s counting your chickens before they hatch and all that overused jazz. The second one is bad for a different reason – if you actually heard that the developer decided not to put something into the game solely for the reason of saving it for a future game, wouldn’t that piss you off? It would piss me off. What a lazy move, and one also filled with overt optimism about future prospects. Thankfully, I don’t think many developers actually think like that. That kind of thinking on the part of the fans is just another one of their attempts to complicate matters unnecessarily. Kind of like how conspiracy theorists have an easier time believing politicians are reptilian aliens rather than accepting chaotic reality, some people would rather think that there’s some radical overarching plan for the reason X wasn’t included (I remember when forum-goers theorized that Super Smash Bros. Brawl didn’t have any Metroid Prime-based content because those filthy Nippon slanteyes hated the games, and they were later proven incredibly wrong) when in reality the reason X isn’t there is because the creators didn’t have the time, the resources, or they just didn’t think of it.
But realizing that would involve accepting Occam’s Razor, which it seems none of them are capable of doing.
Super Sonic Special #15 features a parody of Frank Miller’s Sin City series. It stars Sonic The Hedgehog as John Hartigan and Bunnie Rabbot as Nancy Callahan.
I have a weird history of unexplainable illnesses. I sometimes get awful tooth/headaches (I can barely tell which), although they have seemingly stopped recently. The dentist said I have no signs of sensitive teeth.
Tonight, I have a rather upset stomach. I was close to blowing chunks for the first time in years, but it subsisted (so far). It’s probably what I eat, which is a ton of garbage. Why is this a mystery?
And now that I’m done boring you…
I’m not going to post about Scribblenauts, because I want to write a review of it for the paper. I’ll repost that instead. I’m just going to let you know that it’s as you expected, with very deviant puzzles even early on (What beats lava? NOTHING BEATS LAVA).
I also got the incredible, tight-fitting rooster cap. I am a champion.
This is now a regular feature, just so you know:
A FEW QUOTES I LIKE, Links Edition:
“NRAMA: Finally Grant, could you ever see yourself doing something like this again?
“How did you find me?” blithers Julia
As if there were some mystery in this.
You’re in your house, you stupid fucking girl!
How do you sodding think he found you there?”
–Paul O’ Brien reviews Uncanny X-Men #439
(Don’t blame me, blame most of my blogroll. Warren Ellis especially.)
Another one for the brainfart files:
Do you know of the late 90s Disney-style, Fox-produced animated movie Anastasia? I’ve seen it a few times, and it just dawns on me how utterly bizarre and slightly disturbing it is, in a historical sense.
The Anastasia story, I guess, is completely divorced from where it comes from (IE the Russian Revolution) at this point, although it really shouldn’t be. So I guess it could make sense for Don Bluth and the crew to think it could make a good base for a more modern fairy tale type thing. However, there is still something incredibly off about the way the movie portrays, in a completely off-hand way, the actual Russian Revolution.
I mean, it’s still mainly a background thing that has no real importance on the overall story…even so, I think implying that the revolution was caused by magic and goblins is a weird weird thing to be selling to children.
So here, my imaginary readers, is the challenge: can you think of the most inappropriate way to Disney-fy a real world event?
The Alabaster Sock 