Say what you will about him, Duke just never seemed to die. I don’t want wax all philosophic about the development of the game either. Something does have to be said about lowering ones expectations to new depths only to find them in serious arrears. I booted up Duke Nukem Forever and started playing, not hoping for the holy grail of the digital age, but something competent. Knowing full well that the Miyamoto adage of “A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever” sometimes just doesn’t hold water in the western game development sphere. When a game like Duke Nukem Forever finally comes to the plate, after essentially being relegated to that bargain bin in the sky, you know that you’re walking in to a hot mess.
I think even if this game came out 5 or 6 years ago, it would still be laughed out of the room. Even to turn off modern convention and just play the game as if it’s “old school” flavor is a disservice to old school and nostalgia. This game is a complete recouping of 2K Games’ money/time and the joke is on us the consumer just wanting to hang with our old friend Duke.
The game itself feels like many different pieces tied together to form something resembling a campaign. Had Duke just stuck to the solo adventuring of his earlier efforts, I think the game wouldn’t come off so horribly. The fact that you interact with other characters near the beginning of the game, instantly tips you off that the smell you keep whiffing is the dog turd this game is. The character models are stiff and animate poorly. I had to wait for a NPC to move out of my way just to get down a hallway. There’s no clear direction on where to go half the time, I guess level design that guides the player is too much of a modern contrivance, and real men don’t need maps or arrows pointing you around to counteract the shitty design. The graphics seem to vary from level to level, with some giving off that ultra polished vibe, especially with some of the bigger enemies, and some levels just being the muddy, turd like Unreal engine fueled bogs that they are.
The lengthy development also betrays a lot of the “inspiration” (read: theft) of contemporary shooters during the time of Duke’s design. Physics puzzles from Half Life 2 and the mid 00’s, recharging health bar from Halo, first person platforming and jump pads from the late 90’s, vehicle portions from this last little bit of shooters, all show up and are executed so poorly. You’re probably better off just playing the inspiration and resigning yourself from the frustration.
I’d be curious to see what 13-15 year old boys have to say about this game. Outside of “it’s old” or “it sucks”. Even I can tap into a little bit of what Duke Nukem Forever is trying to stab at with the one-liners and general aesthetic. In fact, I played the first Duke when I was 14 on the Nintendo 64. Granted, it’s a PG-13 version of the game, but coming from my puritanical child rearing wherein I was not allowed to watch The Simpsons because Bart said damn one time, or Beavis and Butt-head for similar reasons, Duke 3D was a Star Gate to a world and game design that I’d never seen before and gave a firm handshake to my developing psyche as a pubescent young man.
Duke 3D wasn’t without it’s frustrations, not to say that it drug on well past the gloss and sheen of the earlier parts of the game. Dare I say, parts were down right boring and unfun slog fests mirroring the key card fetch quests of it‘s Mars based brethren. Where I could see that a George Broussard with his close-minded egotistical fortitude could parlay that in to a “it ain’t broke so don’t fix it” mentality that permeates Duke Nukem Forever.
As a study in that “it ain’t broke” mentality, Duke Nukem Forever shows how far the industry has come in just 5 years, let alone the 12-15 years it took for Duke to come out of the oven still undercooked and bland. There are parts of Duke Nukem Forever that show someone came along much later and added a modern coat of paint to the proceedings, but that does little to mask the stench of an old, rotting, turgid game design.
Duke Nukem Forever isn’t a lesson in game development. More likely, it’s a horror story much like a Frankenstein’s monster. There was a good idea in there at one point, something to aspire to. Over time, that idea became warped and bloated, then became a hot mess unloaded on to a shrugging masses.
I don’t know if Duke Nukem is loved ironically or not. Duke Nukem Forever could’ve gone a long way to answer that question. It could’ve taken up a lot of the campaign just mocking how out of touch Duke had become, or just go whole hog with the cartoonish world that’s laid out before him. Nevertheless, this halfassery does nothing but complicate the Duke Nukem quandary. Are you laughing with him or at him?
As a player, are you picking up Duke Nukem Forever as a carnival sideshow, to be laughed and mocked? Do you come to the game as a archaeologist, looking around to see what took so goddamned long? This questions aren’t answered by the game, so I came to the conclusion that it was just a cynical money grab. Here’s hoping that Gearbox Software can take Duke forward in the future, as it is most assuredly going to be the case.
This isn’t to say that I was trying deprive myself of what Duke Nukem Forever has to offer. I felt that after I started playing the game, it just broke down. There’s nothing to see here, and no one's really surprised. This is a shame.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Review: X-Men: First Class
Big Takeaway: X-Men film reboot with 90% less Bryan Singer than before!
Little Takeaway: The summer movie season kicks off with an above board rebooting of the X-Men films, with a sexy 60’s throwback vibe and just as unsexy special effects.
Review:
You can’t go wrong with the reboot mechanic. In full disclosure, out of the three earlier X-Men films, I only saw X2. I mainly avoid the X-Men movies because Hugh Jackman, while a good actor, is a shitty Wolverine. Also Halle Berry's Storm...sheesh. My disinterest share a similar vein with most super-hero comic movies: there’s not enough disbelief in the world to supplant the comic book image within a mortal prism. Most superheroes are exaggerated and buffoonish characterizations of the human form. To then see an actor attempt to give levity to it is pretty ludicrous. I guess that’s why they call it suspension of disbelief.
Ridiculous aversions aside, X-Men is a good start to the summer movie season. It’s well paced, tells a good story and doesn’t bog you down with explosions and monkey’s. Set in the early 60’s, X-Men tells the tale of Charles Xavier, a mutant with telepathy, and his forming of the X-Men: a group of mutants doing good for a mankind that may not be so accommodating. Cast opposite of Xavier is Erik Lensherr, a mutant that can manipulate metal objects. His loses his family to Nazi’s and is “adopted” by Sebastian Shaw, who tutors him in his new found power through rage and odd experimentation. This is the crux of the plot, the two opposites of the mutant coin. Xavier wants the mutants to do good for mankind, and Lensherr see’s the mutants as the next link in the evolutionary chain, and humankind as an obstacle to be crushed.
But for this sake of this movie, Sebastian Shaw is the main antagonist for most of them film. Kevin Bacon acts the shit out of this movie, and while he looks very silly with the “Magneto” helmet on, is a pretty good bad guy. Christoph Waltz must’ve been busy, or tuned this movie down as Bacon pretty much apes his performance from Inglourious Basterds throughout the film, on top speaking German and Russian as he travels the worlds stirring up mayhem. Shaw’s main goal during the film is to start World War III and it’s up to Xavier and his group to stop them.
The biggest problem with this film, as with most superhero comic films, is that there are too many people. The X-Men have Darwin, Havoc, Angel, Mystique, Beast, Banshee and Magneto. Shaw has himself, Emma Frost, Azazel, and Riptide. There’s just too many characters, most of them have little screen time, only coming out for the fight scenes. They mostly just stand around in the background as this movie eventually boils down to Xavier and Magneto’s conflict.
The Stan Lee elements of the X-Men universe also pop in to say hello in all their hammy goodness(paraphrased):
Hank/Beast: "It's called Cerebro."
Xavier: "That's spanish for Brain?"
The Special effects in this movie also leave a lot to be desired. Some of the effects like Azazel's teleporting looked cool and sharp. The Banshee/Angel air battle was grotesque in it's blurriness and general crap effects work. And one of these day's someone's going to make Beast actually look cool and not like Teen Wolf's dad. Seriously X-Men movie makers, just CGI the beast model on to an actor or something, stop with the practical effects, geez! Speaking of practical effects, the filmmakers didn't really know what to do with Mystique either. I understand that's PG-13 and they made the most of it, but there has to have been a better way of conveying that character without the "I'm just going to maintain a human form" cop out plot device.
While most of the movie is pretty well acted January Jones comes across as very stiff and wooden. While this works for Betty Draper (and I may residual bias against her from Mad Men), Emma Frost is not a sexed up Betty Draper. While I’m certain Jones can act, I just don’t think she was a right fit for the role and in fact just may have been stunt cast. Jennifer Lawrence came across as an odd casting choice. Her face was a bit too round for Mystique and she came across as chubby and uncomfortable. She seemed to lack chemistry with James McAvoy's Xavier, even though the script tried to cram this kinship/bond down your throat as much as possible. To top it off, Mystique is an odd, sexualized character, and Lawrence does little to mask that in a PG-13 film.
As a reboot, this is a much better start for the X-Men. I would’ve maybe preferred Magneto’s fall be spaced out between the first two movies, if this is indeed going to be a new trilogy, but I can definitely see a bright side to getting it out of the way early. I wouldn’t mind a Katie Holmes/Maggie Gyllenhaal switcheroo for the Emma Frost character, either. Seeing as I don’t count the yawn inducing Thor or raving mad cash cow of Pirates of the Caribbean as the start of Summer, this looks to be a great time for movies again.
Final Verdict: Go See It!
Little Takeaway: The summer movie season kicks off with an above board rebooting of the X-Men films, with a sexy 60’s throwback vibe and just as unsexy special effects.
Review:
You can’t go wrong with the reboot mechanic. In full disclosure, out of the three earlier X-Men films, I only saw X2. I mainly avoid the X-Men movies because Hugh Jackman, while a good actor, is a shitty Wolverine. Also Halle Berry's Storm...sheesh. My disinterest share a similar vein with most super-hero comic movies: there’s not enough disbelief in the world to supplant the comic book image within a mortal prism. Most superheroes are exaggerated and buffoonish characterizations of the human form. To then see an actor attempt to give levity to it is pretty ludicrous. I guess that’s why they call it suspension of disbelief.
Ridiculous aversions aside, X-Men is a good start to the summer movie season. It’s well paced, tells a good story and doesn’t bog you down with explosions and monkey’s. Set in the early 60’s, X-Men tells the tale of Charles Xavier, a mutant with telepathy, and his forming of the X-Men: a group of mutants doing good for a mankind that may not be so accommodating. Cast opposite of Xavier is Erik Lensherr, a mutant that can manipulate metal objects. His loses his family to Nazi’s and is “adopted” by Sebastian Shaw, who tutors him in his new found power through rage and odd experimentation. This is the crux of the plot, the two opposites of the mutant coin. Xavier wants the mutants to do good for mankind, and Lensherr see’s the mutants as the next link in the evolutionary chain, and humankind as an obstacle to be crushed.
But for this sake of this movie, Sebastian Shaw is the main antagonist for most of them film. Kevin Bacon acts the shit out of this movie, and while he looks very silly with the “Magneto” helmet on, is a pretty good bad guy. Christoph Waltz must’ve been busy, or tuned this movie down as Bacon pretty much apes his performance from Inglourious Basterds throughout the film, on top speaking German and Russian as he travels the worlds stirring up mayhem. Shaw’s main goal during the film is to start World War III and it’s up to Xavier and his group to stop them.
The biggest problem with this film, as with most superhero comic films, is that there are too many people. The X-Men have Darwin, Havoc, Angel, Mystique, Beast, Banshee and Magneto. Shaw has himself, Emma Frost, Azazel, and Riptide. There’s just too many characters, most of them have little screen time, only coming out for the fight scenes. They mostly just stand around in the background as this movie eventually boils down to Xavier and Magneto’s conflict.
The Stan Lee elements of the X-Men universe also pop in to say hello in all their hammy goodness(paraphrased):
Hank/Beast: "It's called Cerebro."
Xavier: "That's spanish for Brain?"
The Special effects in this movie also leave a lot to be desired. Some of the effects like Azazel's teleporting looked cool and sharp. The Banshee/Angel air battle was grotesque in it's blurriness and general crap effects work. And one of these day's someone's going to make Beast actually look cool and not like Teen Wolf's dad. Seriously X-Men movie makers, just CGI the beast model on to an actor or something, stop with the practical effects, geez! Speaking of practical effects, the filmmakers didn't really know what to do with Mystique either. I understand that's PG-13 and they made the most of it, but there has to have been a better way of conveying that character without the "I'm just going to maintain a human form" cop out plot device.
While most of the movie is pretty well acted January Jones comes across as very stiff and wooden. While this works for Betty Draper (and I may residual bias against her from Mad Men), Emma Frost is not a sexed up Betty Draper. While I’m certain Jones can act, I just don’t think she was a right fit for the role and in fact just may have been stunt cast. Jennifer Lawrence came across as an odd casting choice. Her face was a bit too round for Mystique and she came across as chubby and uncomfortable. She seemed to lack chemistry with James McAvoy's Xavier, even though the script tried to cram this kinship/bond down your throat as much as possible. To top it off, Mystique is an odd, sexualized character, and Lawrence does little to mask that in a PG-13 film.
As a reboot, this is a much better start for the X-Men. I would’ve maybe preferred Magneto’s fall be spaced out between the first two movies, if this is indeed going to be a new trilogy, but I can definitely see a bright side to getting it out of the way early. I wouldn’t mind a Katie Holmes/Maggie Gyllenhaal switcheroo for the Emma Frost character, either. Seeing as I don’t count the yawn inducing Thor or raving mad cash cow of Pirates of the Caribbean as the start of Summer, this looks to be a great time for movies again.
Final Verdict: Go See It!
Friday, June 3, 2011
Jack Krier and the Amazing "Intellectual Dishonesty"!
I think I finally understand how right-wingers feel when anyone fellates Bill Clinton’s legacy, or I guess even FDR for that matter. Every time I read about how awesome (so awesome) Ronald Reagan was, my arm starts cramping from all the knocking his dick out of every single right wing nut’s mouth. Our beautiful Friend of the City Haterville™ Jack Krier chimes in with some recent knee bruising gobbling. Hell, by now he’s even got an over-sized bib to collect all the drippings to later be canned up and broke out to sniff from time to time when that black man running the country, who’s ruining everything, subverts more of his freedoms.
He starts with that old Reagan adage: “Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close semblance to the first.”. Mr. Krier fails to remember that he said this while being spread eagle in the Lincoln bedroom taking it from every corporate interest lobby, evangelical bible thumper, wall street coke hound, and anyone with a “generous” campaign contribution right in his asshole throughout his entire administration. When Dick Cheney is spouting that “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter,” and the fact that he raised taxes after a couple disastrous attempts at deregulation, pretty much creating this fiscal tsunami we’re currently failing at, you can’t tell me he was a font of political immaculateness.
More to the point I think the beginning of Mr. Krier’s article is more a veiled attempt to call Nancy Pelosi a whore. Clever girl! Who’s “intellectual dishonesty” (the lower bar of the uneven bar gymnastics Mr. Krier will attempt in his article) is an example of why politicians are the bane to the public general.
Her crime? Oh, yeah that’s coming. She said in 2006: “Even if Osama bin Laden is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But, in fact, the damage that he has done .. Is done. And even to capture him now I don’t think makes us any safer.”. Mr. Krier then flashes forward with her recent comment after the death of bin Laden: “The death of Osama bin Laden marks the most significant development in our fight against al-Qaeda…” she then goes on to congratulate the President and the administration involved, the boiler plate stuff you’re all familiar with by now in regard to bin Laden’s demise. Mr. Krier believes those two statements are tantamount to partisan hackery and foolishness. In fact it is conclusive proof of “intellectual dishonesty”.
First of all, what the hell is “intellectual dishonesty“? Especially in this case. These are two separate statements that are…well, SEPARATE STATEMENTS. These are nothing compared to the “President Bush deserves the credit for this, not Obama” bullshit that the right wing has been parroting since the president stepped away from the podium on that May 1st evening. Even that is a flimsy statement, and lo, only the lowliest of the right wing buffoon’s trumpet that one, Mr. Krier being one of those it seems. The first statement is a very important point that needed to be made. The damage bin Laden did to our society on 9/11 left a deep wound that will never heal fully. Especially coupled with the way the Bush administration used it to fuel the deep uprooting of our constitutional freedoms, amongst other things and not limited to the useless invasion of Iraq to nab not bin Laden but some other character not even wholly involved! And did killing bin Laden make us any safer? Uh, no. Al-Qaeda didn’t poof in to smoke and fade away the moment bin Laden ate it, or am I mistaken? Suffice it to say, the wound is still healing.
Mr. Krier wonders why the good ole “mainstream media” didn’t pick this hypocrisy up and splash it at least under the massive “bin Laden Dead!” headlines. No great pressings of “Politician caught being duplicitous!” What? Again!? Really, Mr. Krier if that’s her high crime against the American public then we have a bigger problem on our hands. Strangely Mr. Krier failed to run this on the front page of ANY of his papers, let alone any other pages. He just chose to editorialize about it. Hrm, that’s curious.
But you see Mr. Krier, she wasn’t being “intellectually dishonest”. The second statement is, again, a boilerplate congratulations, one that she would’ve gladly heaped (though slightly begrudgingly like your fellow right wingers to Obama) on President Bush had he even bothered to capture bin Laden. The fact that you had to go to some right wing blog called Power Line to dig up this juicy journalistic nugget, also kind of tips your hand to your own ravaged partisanship.
Mr. Krier, can we also let go of those Red Herring’s “mainstream media” and “both sides are guilty”? I’m going to go ahead and state for the record that there hasn’t been a real good modern ‘republican” president since Teddy Roosevelt and he’d slap the taste out the mouths of anyone calling themselves republican if he were alive today. Both sides are guilty only in being an amalgamation of everything wrong with our political system today. There’s honestly no real difference anymore, they are in fact the very whores you speak of early in the column! But republican presidents, and congressmen/women share one common theme: they continually set our society on the path to ruin, and betray the trust of those who voted them in to office in the first place(see Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Hoover). This is why you’re constantly waiving the “both sides are complicit” bullshit every time one of your boys plunges our economy or public conscience in to the toilet. Even the republicans that you should claim on high with Reaganesque cockgobblings gusto like the afore mention Theodore Roosevelt (hell Abraham Lincoln anyone?), you disavow in a heartbeat because they smell a hint of compromise and progressive societal gain, plus it goes too far back in history to be relevant to the revisionist bent of right wingers!
It’s why you constantly need to buoy your failed republican presidencies with revisionist history nonsense. Reagan has his questionable Iranian Hostage Crisis, desperately clawing away at Carter’s legacy as you’re favorite whipping boy of democrat flavored failure. Yet, you have the temerity to waddle up to the collective table and declare this a “W” in the win column for Bush’s horrible legacy? Never mind that he’s been out of office for two years, AND (as previously stated) had pretty much GIVEN UP looking for Osama bin Laden in 2002. http://tiny.cc/o85yi (Thank God for the Internets and YouTube!) That was nearly 10 years ago!
If I’m also not mistaken, didn’t you win the “Reid-Pelosi is a two headed demon who will eat your babies and awash you in financial ruin, cursing you and your kin for all time to the demon Chinese slave trade to work off your formidable debts….” You get the idea. How’s that Tea Party thing working out for you? Oh, caught them spread out too huh?
Mainstream media? Come on Mr. Krier, I could at least respect you if you were to call it the “corporate media” that it truly is. The only bent is to protect that corporate interest and the advertising dollars that fuel it. I don’t watch much network news (I read news articles and watch multiple news sources, you should try it sometime), but when I do happen upon a nightly news, there’s nothing resembling journalism going on. I often wonder if the Today Show has expanded to nineteenth segment, set during the evening. That is how lapse it seems. If there is a partisan bent, it’s not calling out your buffoonish demagogues in the Congress, who seem to be the most able of putting foot in mouth on a regular basis. Need I remind of you Newt’s twisting and turning a few weeks ago? Or are you going to disown him too and say that both sides are guilty of this type of harsh, idiotic backpedaling on a regular basis?
The approval rating of congress is never going to really matter. For good reason. No one’s going ever to be happy with anything a bunch of whore’s try to cook up. The brothel smells and hasn’t been properly cleaned in ages. Yea, there’s a constant stream of fresh meat, bused in from the Midwest (tea party darlings are soooo sweet!), but they too eventually reek of the same ole same ole.
Perhaps, to wrap this all around to your whore analogy, you’re tired of the same offerings of the tired, old, saggy titted Reagan and this is a flimsy way to find a new John to furiously blow for the next thirty-odd years? The unsurprisingly ability of people like Mr. Krier and his ilk to boldly attempt to twist history the exact moment it comes out is something that needs to be watched closely. Unfortunately, this is where journalists came in and protected us from falsities and revisionist demagoguery of right wing blowhards. And even so, Mr. Krier is a “journalist” and has no real qualms pushing lies and half-truths in all of his papers, willingly betraying the very public he should be educating. Intellectual dishonesty indeed, eh Mr. Krier?
***Mayor’s Note: This is Jack Krier’s second mention in this minutes reporting. I noticed in my stats a lot of hits from Google for Jack Krier recently, so felt obliged to the old man who probably spends what little time he has left on earth “Google”’ing himself. He squeezes this in between race baiting, typing up horrible blonde jokes and misinforming local yokels who don’t know what Google even is with his white knuckle ranting/dragging “editorials“ in the myriad of small town papers he publishes every so often.***
He starts with that old Reagan adage: “Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close semblance to the first.”. Mr. Krier fails to remember that he said this while being spread eagle in the Lincoln bedroom taking it from every corporate interest lobby, evangelical bible thumper, wall street coke hound, and anyone with a “generous” campaign contribution right in his asshole throughout his entire administration. When Dick Cheney is spouting that “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter,” and the fact that he raised taxes after a couple disastrous attempts at deregulation, pretty much creating this fiscal tsunami we’re currently failing at, you can’t tell me he was a font of political immaculateness.
More to the point I think the beginning of Mr. Krier’s article is more a veiled attempt to call Nancy Pelosi a whore. Clever girl! Who’s “intellectual dishonesty” (the lower bar of the uneven bar gymnastics Mr. Krier will attempt in his article) is an example of why politicians are the bane to the public general.
Her crime? Oh, yeah that’s coming. She said in 2006: “Even if Osama bin Laden is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But, in fact, the damage that he has done .. Is done. And even to capture him now I don’t think makes us any safer.”. Mr. Krier then flashes forward with her recent comment after the death of bin Laden: “The death of Osama bin Laden marks the most significant development in our fight against al-Qaeda…” she then goes on to congratulate the President and the administration involved, the boiler plate stuff you’re all familiar with by now in regard to bin Laden’s demise. Mr. Krier believes those two statements are tantamount to partisan hackery and foolishness. In fact it is conclusive proof of “intellectual dishonesty”.
First of all, what the hell is “intellectual dishonesty“? Especially in this case. These are two separate statements that are…well, SEPARATE STATEMENTS. These are nothing compared to the “President Bush deserves the credit for this, not Obama” bullshit that the right wing has been parroting since the president stepped away from the podium on that May 1st evening. Even that is a flimsy statement, and lo, only the lowliest of the right wing buffoon’s trumpet that one, Mr. Krier being one of those it seems. The first statement is a very important point that needed to be made. The damage bin Laden did to our society on 9/11 left a deep wound that will never heal fully. Especially coupled with the way the Bush administration used it to fuel the deep uprooting of our constitutional freedoms, amongst other things and not limited to the useless invasion of Iraq to nab not bin Laden but some other character not even wholly involved! And did killing bin Laden make us any safer? Uh, no. Al-Qaeda didn’t poof in to smoke and fade away the moment bin Laden ate it, or am I mistaken? Suffice it to say, the wound is still healing.
Mr. Krier wonders why the good ole “mainstream media” didn’t pick this hypocrisy up and splash it at least under the massive “bin Laden Dead!” headlines. No great pressings of “Politician caught being duplicitous!” What? Again!? Really, Mr. Krier if that’s her high crime against the American public then we have a bigger problem on our hands. Strangely Mr. Krier failed to run this on the front page of ANY of his papers, let alone any other pages. He just chose to editorialize about it. Hrm, that’s curious.
But you see Mr. Krier, she wasn’t being “intellectually dishonest”. The second statement is, again, a boilerplate congratulations, one that she would’ve gladly heaped (though slightly begrudgingly like your fellow right wingers to Obama) on President Bush had he even bothered to capture bin Laden. The fact that you had to go to some right wing blog called Power Line to dig up this juicy journalistic nugget, also kind of tips your hand to your own ravaged partisanship.
Mr. Krier, can we also let go of those Red Herring’s “mainstream media” and “both sides are guilty”? I’m going to go ahead and state for the record that there hasn’t been a real good modern ‘republican” president since Teddy Roosevelt and he’d slap the taste out the mouths of anyone calling themselves republican if he were alive today. Both sides are guilty only in being an amalgamation of everything wrong with our political system today. There’s honestly no real difference anymore, they are in fact the very whores you speak of early in the column! But republican presidents, and congressmen/women share one common theme: they continually set our society on the path to ruin, and betray the trust of those who voted them in to office in the first place(see Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Hoover). This is why you’re constantly waiving the “both sides are complicit” bullshit every time one of your boys plunges our economy or public conscience in to the toilet. Even the republicans that you should claim on high with Reaganesque cockgobblings gusto like the afore mention Theodore Roosevelt (hell Abraham Lincoln anyone?), you disavow in a heartbeat because they smell a hint of compromise and progressive societal gain, plus it goes too far back in history to be relevant to the revisionist bent of right wingers!
It’s why you constantly need to buoy your failed republican presidencies with revisionist history nonsense. Reagan has his questionable Iranian Hostage Crisis, desperately clawing away at Carter’s legacy as you’re favorite whipping boy of democrat flavored failure. Yet, you have the temerity to waddle up to the collective table and declare this a “W” in the win column for Bush’s horrible legacy? Never mind that he’s been out of office for two years, AND (as previously stated) had pretty much GIVEN UP looking for Osama bin Laden in 2002. http://tiny.cc/o85yi (Thank God for the Internets and YouTube!) That was nearly 10 years ago!
If I’m also not mistaken, didn’t you win the “Reid-Pelosi is a two headed demon who will eat your babies and awash you in financial ruin, cursing you and your kin for all time to the demon Chinese slave trade to work off your formidable debts….” You get the idea. How’s that Tea Party thing working out for you? Oh, caught them spread out too huh?
Mainstream media? Come on Mr. Krier, I could at least respect you if you were to call it the “corporate media” that it truly is. The only bent is to protect that corporate interest and the advertising dollars that fuel it. I don’t watch much network news (I read news articles and watch multiple news sources, you should try it sometime), but when I do happen upon a nightly news, there’s nothing resembling journalism going on. I often wonder if the Today Show has expanded to nineteenth segment, set during the evening. That is how lapse it seems. If there is a partisan bent, it’s not calling out your buffoonish demagogues in the Congress, who seem to be the most able of putting foot in mouth on a regular basis. Need I remind of you Newt’s twisting and turning a few weeks ago? Or are you going to disown him too and say that both sides are guilty of this type of harsh, idiotic backpedaling on a regular basis?
The approval rating of congress is never going to really matter. For good reason. No one’s going ever to be happy with anything a bunch of whore’s try to cook up. The brothel smells and hasn’t been properly cleaned in ages. Yea, there’s a constant stream of fresh meat, bused in from the Midwest (tea party darlings are soooo sweet!), but they too eventually reek of the same ole same ole.
Perhaps, to wrap this all around to your whore analogy, you’re tired of the same offerings of the tired, old, saggy titted Reagan and this is a flimsy way to find a new John to furiously blow for the next thirty-odd years? The unsurprisingly ability of people like Mr. Krier and his ilk to boldly attempt to twist history the exact moment it comes out is something that needs to be watched closely. Unfortunately, this is where journalists came in and protected us from falsities and revisionist demagoguery of right wing blowhards. And even so, Mr. Krier is a “journalist” and has no real qualms pushing lies and half-truths in all of his papers, willingly betraying the very public he should be educating. Intellectual dishonesty indeed, eh Mr. Krier?
***Mayor’s Note: This is Jack Krier’s second mention in this minutes reporting. I noticed in my stats a lot of hits from Google for Jack Krier recently, so felt obliged to the old man who probably spends what little time he has left on earth “Google”’ing himself. He squeezes this in between race baiting, typing up horrible blonde jokes and misinforming local yokels who don’t know what Google even is with his white knuckle ranting/dragging “editorials“ in the myriad of small town papers he publishes every so often.***
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Review: L.A. Noire
The Big Takeaway: A new open world game from publisher Rockstar, with a moody 1940’s film noir bent.
The Little Takeaway: Linear to a fault, facial technology is great, but the bodies attached seem disassociated and polygonal in appearance. Disappointing final act.
Review:
Like the damaged dame that walks in to your private dick office, L.A. Noire has a lot of issues. The dame’s also got a pretty face, the more to lure you in to the shadows to see what she’s all twisted about. The MotionScan technology used in L.A. Noire is unprecedented in it’s fidelity and its really hard to go back to the games you’ve played before and not be a little crest fallen at the mannequin-esque quality of your typical videogame characters. But there’s little else to prop the game up. The street crimes are literal filler during cases, and break down to “chase down perp, shoot or tackle, cut scene, move on”. Which, when coupled with some the actions you do during the cases can lead to severe de ja vu.
The biggest knock against the game is it’s pacing. Which would’ve been better served with a shorter completion time. The game clocks in at about 20 hours, and in that time you’ve done and seen everything the game has to offer. More than once. If you attempt all the street crimes, you’ll do everything the game has to offer four or five times.
The big sale of L.A. Noire is the detective work and interrogations that make up the meat of the game. Like an old timey point-n-click adventure, you’ll wander around crime scenes and pick up odds and ends to gather clues that you’ll then use during the interrogation aspect of the various cases you take on. You’ll ask a victim or suspect a series of questions, they will answer and you’ll have to pick if they are telling the truth, doubt the information they say, or accuse them of lying where then you’ll have to produce the aforementioned evidence proving they’re lying. It takes a little time to discern the doubt/lie mechanic and sometimes you can miss key evidence that would lead you to accuse them of lying. The one downside of the interview mechanic is that most everyone can be doubted or accused of lying. It’s like telling the truth is a massive aversion. So much so that I was dumbfounded at finding a couple of characters were in fact telling me the truth, they were so few and far between.
The game is broken up by cases desks: Patrol, Traffic, Homicide and Arson. You’ll move through each desk in a linear fashion getting “promoted” to the next desk. Some of the desks have tiny story arcs in them that couple with the main arc of the story, if and when it decides to show up.
In between some cases and desks flashbacks of protagonist Cole Phelps’ time with the Marines in Okinawa. The flashbacks don’t really start making sense until around act three, but they do fill in gaps with some of the characters you run in during the game.
Cole Phelps, like many of his fellow Rockstar Games brethren, has a troubled past he’s trying to overcome, and you get to join in some of that during your time with him in L.A. Noire. Unlike his other brethren, the trouble in his past hardly ever interferes with the game, and since the game’s pacing takes so long to get to the payoff for all these flashbacks it doesn’t really help or hurt the game.
The game attempts to ape the “noir” film rules for most of narrative structure. Which is fine for first half of the game, but as the cases begin to leave the circle of lady killings and foul play it starts losing steam. There’s some loose connective tissue in the terms of throwaway cut scenes trying futility to tie the “noir” elements together for the “great fall” in the middle acts.
The game goes from episodic to full on narrative tilt pretty much halfway through the game. It goes from quaint to why even bother with the whole “noir” element. Then swoops in with the final “noir” flourish, delivering the emotion of futility in the narrative which is great for a movie but not so much for a game. Especially one that you’ve spent a couple of dozen hours with.
Now, Red Dead Redemption similarly pulled this kind of maneuver not so long ago, so it can be done properly and not cheat the player.
Reviewing this game is difficult, in terms of a tech demo, it’s terrific! Never before has facial fidelity been so great, and it taps in to that subconscious ability people have to recognize facial ticks and subtly of facial movement. However, as a game it falls so short of anything on the market. The proclamation that it’s a 90% accurate depiction of 1940’s Los Angeles is wasted on the linear styling’s of the game. It’s a great backdrop, but it’s lifeless and devoid of that spark that inhabits much of Rockstar’s open world games.
I never went in to L.A. Noire expecting a GTA type of open world with a myriad of things to do, but I did expect the world to pulse and move like a real city. The linearity of the story is one thing, but then to fill it with only street crime side quests and little else is truly a shame.
Final Verdict: A very good rental. Look forward to the use of the MotionScan technology in the future.
The Little Takeaway: Linear to a fault, facial technology is great, but the bodies attached seem disassociated and polygonal in appearance. Disappointing final act.
Review:
Like the damaged dame that walks in to your private dick office, L.A. Noire has a lot of issues. The dame’s also got a pretty face, the more to lure you in to the shadows to see what she’s all twisted about. The MotionScan technology used in L.A. Noire is unprecedented in it’s fidelity and its really hard to go back to the games you’ve played before and not be a little crest fallen at the mannequin-esque quality of your typical videogame characters. But there’s little else to prop the game up. The street crimes are literal filler during cases, and break down to “chase down perp, shoot or tackle, cut scene, move on”. Which, when coupled with some the actions you do during the cases can lead to severe de ja vu.
The biggest knock against the game is it’s pacing. Which would’ve been better served with a shorter completion time. The game clocks in at about 20 hours, and in that time you’ve done and seen everything the game has to offer. More than once. If you attempt all the street crimes, you’ll do everything the game has to offer four or five times.
The big sale of L.A. Noire is the detective work and interrogations that make up the meat of the game. Like an old timey point-n-click adventure, you’ll wander around crime scenes and pick up odds and ends to gather clues that you’ll then use during the interrogation aspect of the various cases you take on. You’ll ask a victim or suspect a series of questions, they will answer and you’ll have to pick if they are telling the truth, doubt the information they say, or accuse them of lying where then you’ll have to produce the aforementioned evidence proving they’re lying. It takes a little time to discern the doubt/lie mechanic and sometimes you can miss key evidence that would lead you to accuse them of lying. The one downside of the interview mechanic is that most everyone can be doubted or accused of lying. It’s like telling the truth is a massive aversion. So much so that I was dumbfounded at finding a couple of characters were in fact telling me the truth, they were so few and far between.
The game is broken up by cases desks: Patrol, Traffic, Homicide and Arson. You’ll move through each desk in a linear fashion getting “promoted” to the next desk. Some of the desks have tiny story arcs in them that couple with the main arc of the story, if and when it decides to show up.
In between some cases and desks flashbacks of protagonist Cole Phelps’ time with the Marines in Okinawa. The flashbacks don’t really start making sense until around act three, but they do fill in gaps with some of the characters you run in during the game.
Cole Phelps, like many of his fellow Rockstar Games brethren, has a troubled past he’s trying to overcome, and you get to join in some of that during your time with him in L.A. Noire. Unlike his other brethren, the trouble in his past hardly ever interferes with the game, and since the game’s pacing takes so long to get to the payoff for all these flashbacks it doesn’t really help or hurt the game.
The game attempts to ape the “noir” film rules for most of narrative structure. Which is fine for first half of the game, but as the cases begin to leave the circle of lady killings and foul play it starts losing steam. There’s some loose connective tissue in the terms of throwaway cut scenes trying futility to tie the “noir” elements together for the “great fall” in the middle acts.
The game goes from episodic to full on narrative tilt pretty much halfway through the game. It goes from quaint to why even bother with the whole “noir” element. Then swoops in with the final “noir” flourish, delivering the emotion of futility in the narrative which is great for a movie but not so much for a game. Especially one that you’ve spent a couple of dozen hours with.
Now, Red Dead Redemption similarly pulled this kind of maneuver not so long ago, so it can be done properly and not cheat the player.
Reviewing this game is difficult, in terms of a tech demo, it’s terrific! Never before has facial fidelity been so great, and it taps in to that subconscious ability people have to recognize facial ticks and subtly of facial movement. However, as a game it falls so short of anything on the market. The proclamation that it’s a 90% accurate depiction of 1940’s Los Angeles is wasted on the linear styling’s of the game. It’s a great backdrop, but it’s lifeless and devoid of that spark that inhabits much of Rockstar’s open world games.
I never went in to L.A. Noire expecting a GTA type of open world with a myriad of things to do, but I did expect the world to pulse and move like a real city. The linearity of the story is one thing, but then to fill it with only street crime side quests and little else is truly a shame.
Final Verdict: A very good rental. Look forward to the use of the MotionScan technology in the future.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Real Honesty with your friend Tommy Felts
I was going to avoid writing anything on the death of Osama bin Laden. Mostly because no right wing yahoos would write an editorial giving me the fire to do so. Most of them were anti-climatic, downward gazing, slow clapping for Obama, just trying not to convey any emotion of gratitude for him. Denying him the ticker tape parades and instant need for a national holiday had W. done the same thing. For weeks, I’ve been left wanting a right leaning buffoon to decry Obama as not excited enough, lacking a “glint” in his eye, or riding in on a giant mutated bald eagle draped only in the American Flag, fireworks shooting out of his nipples, the founding fathers rising from their graves to join him in a rousing musical number celebrating the end of American‘s most wanted. Whatever fever dream that could be imagined just wouldn’t be sufficient to the needs, nay, demands of the right wing. Finally, my old friend Tommy Felts came to my rescue.
To say that I’m (still) not a fan of his award winning writing (yup, the Kansas Press Assoc. awarded him 1st place for column writing) is an understatement. So I’m not completely surprised that A) He’s not a fan of Obama. B) He thinks W. “began and doggedly pursued the fight against the terrorist leader”, showing he has that knack for revisionist current events. C) His practical reason for wanting Bush to capture bin Laden: the need to somehow not be labeled racist for the Obama/Osama name switch. Tommy, you live in the middle of Kansas, I’m highly doubtful anyone would call you a racist for the Osama/Obama slip. You’re also typing this out presumably on a computer, and you’re the managing editor of the paper, god help you if you don’t catch that before printing the paper!
First off the bat is the tired old trope of “Obama doesn’t care” argument. “…Obama was somber as he delivered the news. He didn’t smile. He didn’t seem happy. He delivered his lines and left.” Tommy, that’s called giving a speech. And when has Obama ever came off as a firebrand? Isn’t the main beef the right wing has with Obama is that he’s too stiff, professorial? He “talks down to people”, “lectures”….on and on (here I must try and stifle a yawn. It’s like, “Really? This again?). Tommy even tethers the Muslim connection “…particularly with the terribly volatile Muslim population whose friendship Obama has been courting” You mean the “friendship” with the Muslims that’s taken up about 5 or 6 past administrations Tommy? You’re afraid of being labeled a racist? Oh how about lumping all of Islam in to the terrorist wagon. Also, hyperbole much?
How Tommy Felts feels that announcing bin Laden is dead becomes political maneuvering reveals that the blinders are on for anyone representing the Democrat party, or moderate independents in general. Do families of murder victims publicly whoop and holler when the killer is executed? No, they don’t. It would be in poor taste. Sure, we would understand and sympathize with their relief, but it would seem callow. The death of bin Laden was going to be political capital for any president and their party. Period.
Tommy then goes on to confuse liberals for peace loving, tree hugging anti-war hippies. I think most people were fine with global war on terror, to a point. A lot of scared post 9/11 people weren’t reading the fine print, however. We wanted bin Laden and the Taliban done away with, but we didn’t sign up to pervert American citizens constitutional given rights. No one certainly wanted us to go in to Iraq, especially under curious speculation, and eventual bald faced lies, used as evidence to invade a country that had zero to do with 9/11. Also curious that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi’s, but again, Tommy doesn’t relate any of this. On top of unfunded, illegal invasion, we strip away human dignity from supposed “terrorists” by humiliating and torturing them in gray area (Gitmo, black site) prisons. Sentencing people in kangaroo courts without due process. Finally, illegal and warrant less wiretapping of our nation’s citizens. Liberals aren’t pushovers. We do believe in a pragmatic foreign policy, which was never on W.‘s table. He was too busy trying to be a cowboy on the world’s stage, and fight a ceaseless war. But let’s forget all that and focus on how much work W. put in to catching bin Laden.
Oh yea. Tommy I’m sure you’re old enough to remember in about 2006 when W. said he wasn’t really concerned with bin Laden and wasn’t actively looking for him. This about the time he closed the CIA operations force tasked with finding bin Laden, and stopped special forces from actively searching the mountainous area around the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. I’m pretty sure W. was never interested in catching bin Laden, and it’s pretty evident that was the case. The point was to start a bunch of warrant less conflicts and make a lot of money for the war profiteers. Of which most of the Bush administration were stockholders of.
Osama bin Laden’s death was a good ego boost for our nation, but it was too little too late. On top of this, any credit that could be given to W. is undercut by his hand in the torpedoing of our economy, the staggeringly idiotic legacy of his tax cuts, the cost, both financially and physically of two unneeded wars, and the souring of nation’s international relations. Just to name a few. I refuse to allow W. to become the next incarnation of Reagan. I will shout down all apologists, like Tommy Felts, who will try and canonize this man and his legacy. We as a nation cannot allow this, regardless of parties. Especially now, when most of the right wing admonishes most of W.’s presidency and the damage he caused. I am proud that Obama isn’t a clown, and that even though he’s been a huge letdown in terms of what he campaigned on, he’s at least trying to lead this country somewhere.
Finally, Tommy Felts wishes that Obama would show the picture of a dead ass bin Laden because “We saw the horror of Sept. 11... We can handle a photo of a terrorist’s corpse”. This is the mentality that I hope we can leave behind, but it’s highly doubtful. It’s that same “poke them towel heads in the eye” mentality that has lead to so much bloodshed from Americans in the sands of the middle eastern region. We weren’t shown the complete horror of 9/11 and it remained illegal for much of the 00’s to publish photos of flag draped caskets returning from the wars, so to say we can stomach it is a joke and insulting to our better judgment. We need to not make a martyr out of bin Laden, that should be our principal goal. What we don’t need is more logs for the undying fire that represents our place in the globe. Now that’s being honest Tommy Felts.
To say that I’m (still) not a fan of his award winning writing (yup, the Kansas Press Assoc. awarded him 1st place for column writing) is an understatement. So I’m not completely surprised that A) He’s not a fan of Obama. B) He thinks W. “began and doggedly pursued the fight against the terrorist leader”, showing he has that knack for revisionist current events. C) His practical reason for wanting Bush to capture bin Laden: the need to somehow not be labeled racist for the Obama/Osama name switch. Tommy, you live in the middle of Kansas, I’m highly doubtful anyone would call you a racist for the Osama/Obama slip. You’re also typing this out presumably on a computer, and you’re the managing editor of the paper, god help you if you don’t catch that before printing the paper!
First off the bat is the tired old trope of “Obama doesn’t care” argument. “…Obama was somber as he delivered the news. He didn’t smile. He didn’t seem happy. He delivered his lines and left.” Tommy, that’s called giving a speech. And when has Obama ever came off as a firebrand? Isn’t the main beef the right wing has with Obama is that he’s too stiff, professorial? He “talks down to people”, “lectures”….on and on (here I must try and stifle a yawn. It’s like, “Really? This again?). Tommy even tethers the Muslim connection “…particularly with the terribly volatile Muslim population whose friendship Obama has been courting” You mean the “friendship” with the Muslims that’s taken up about 5 or 6 past administrations Tommy? You’re afraid of being labeled a racist? Oh how about lumping all of Islam in to the terrorist wagon. Also, hyperbole much?
How Tommy Felts feels that announcing bin Laden is dead becomes political maneuvering reveals that the blinders are on for anyone representing the Democrat party, or moderate independents in general. Do families of murder victims publicly whoop and holler when the killer is executed? No, they don’t. It would be in poor taste. Sure, we would understand and sympathize with their relief, but it would seem callow. The death of bin Laden was going to be political capital for any president and their party. Period.
Tommy then goes on to confuse liberals for peace loving, tree hugging anti-war hippies. I think most people were fine with global war on terror, to a point. A lot of scared post 9/11 people weren’t reading the fine print, however. We wanted bin Laden and the Taliban done away with, but we didn’t sign up to pervert American citizens constitutional given rights. No one certainly wanted us to go in to Iraq, especially under curious speculation, and eventual bald faced lies, used as evidence to invade a country that had zero to do with 9/11. Also curious that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi’s, but again, Tommy doesn’t relate any of this. On top of unfunded, illegal invasion, we strip away human dignity from supposed “terrorists” by humiliating and torturing them in gray area (Gitmo, black site) prisons. Sentencing people in kangaroo courts without due process. Finally, illegal and warrant less wiretapping of our nation’s citizens. Liberals aren’t pushovers. We do believe in a pragmatic foreign policy, which was never on W.‘s table. He was too busy trying to be a cowboy on the world’s stage, and fight a ceaseless war. But let’s forget all that and focus on how much work W. put in to catching bin Laden.
Oh yea. Tommy I’m sure you’re old enough to remember in about 2006 when W. said he wasn’t really concerned with bin Laden and wasn’t actively looking for him. This about the time he closed the CIA operations force tasked with finding bin Laden, and stopped special forces from actively searching the mountainous area around the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. I’m pretty sure W. was never interested in catching bin Laden, and it’s pretty evident that was the case. The point was to start a bunch of warrant less conflicts and make a lot of money for the war profiteers. Of which most of the Bush administration were stockholders of.
Osama bin Laden’s death was a good ego boost for our nation, but it was too little too late. On top of this, any credit that could be given to W. is undercut by his hand in the torpedoing of our economy, the staggeringly idiotic legacy of his tax cuts, the cost, both financially and physically of two unneeded wars, and the souring of nation’s international relations. Just to name a few. I refuse to allow W. to become the next incarnation of Reagan. I will shout down all apologists, like Tommy Felts, who will try and canonize this man and his legacy. We as a nation cannot allow this, regardless of parties. Especially now, when most of the right wing admonishes most of W.’s presidency and the damage he caused. I am proud that Obama isn’t a clown, and that even though he’s been a huge letdown in terms of what he campaigned on, he’s at least trying to lead this country somewhere.
Finally, Tommy Felts wishes that Obama would show the picture of a dead ass bin Laden because “We saw the horror of Sept. 11... We can handle a photo of a terrorist’s corpse”. This is the mentality that I hope we can leave behind, but it’s highly doubtful. It’s that same “poke them towel heads in the eye” mentality that has lead to so much bloodshed from Americans in the sands of the middle eastern region. We weren’t shown the complete horror of 9/11 and it remained illegal for much of the 00’s to publish photos of flag draped caskets returning from the wars, so to say we can stomach it is a joke and insulting to our better judgment. We need to not make a martyr out of bin Laden, that should be our principal goal. What we don’t need is more logs for the undying fire that represents our place in the globe. Now that’s being honest Tommy Felts.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Political Cartoons!
***Mayor's Note: I know that The Donald announced earlier this week that he wasn't running. I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, and just couldn't bear to part with it. While The Donald isn't running and that greatly saddens me, I still think this is a pretty good piece about political candidates for office.***
Donald Trump is NOT running for President. He’s merely taken a page from the great “runner-in-chief” Newt Gingrich, and is fully reaping the rewards of a similar campaign. Honestly, that right-wing money is just laying there for anyone anti-Obama to take, it’s not hard. I’m not talking about those Tea Party kooks either, I’m talking those moneyed interests that have billions just laying around. If they’re not diving in to them from lofty heights, they’re pushing them out in to “Grass-roots” buffoonery and the like. So, yea, Donald Trump isn’t running, this is just one long exasperating commercial for The Donald.
I thought we were all in on the joke there for a bit. Just like the days when The Donald was hocking stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut or whatever other products having to do with absolutely nothing with real estate that he managed to find time to do commercials for. To say he is a character is doing a disservice to the multitudes of half-serious people that run our country as “politicians” and star in our motion pictures as “actors“. Who’s to say that America isn’t in love with cartoons? We’ve elected more than our fair share of cowboy’s, farmers, generals and the like. Hell, we endured 8 years under a pretend cowboy, so honestly, The Donald as a legitimate GOP candidate isn’t as far fetched at first blush.
But it is sad that this is our lot as a society. There’s constant talk of having “adult conversation”, but then some right-wing doofus whips out an over-sized pink mallet and swings it around, then slips on a banana peel crashing to the floor.
It seems like after Watergate, that we just couldn’t handle legitimate evil being unmasked. It was too real, or too devastating to the nation psyche that people are liars and crooks, even sitting president Nixon wasn’t immune from the clutches of evil. Then cartoon Jimmy Carter gets elected, and so begins our love affair with the characters.
Which is not to say it’s such a bad thing when the country’s doing great. As it’s done surprisingly from time to time. Yet, there always seems to be a massive hangover. The late 80’s, early 90’s, just recently with good ole’ W, those morning-afters are hellacious! Then we bounce back through the magic of the American Spirit!
I’ve gotten off track. The Donald is a cartoon, and it’s dangerous that he’s even being taken seriously. It is also no surprise that he is a GOP favorite as they seem to be the majority shareholder in the cartoon candidate manufacturing factory. You can just close your eyes and imagine them rolling off the line now: Palin, Gingrich, Huckabee, Regan, W., Bachmann, on and on. This is just recent memory. If it’s not a self-serious old white guy beating the drum of the same ole same ole’, it’s a cartoon (not to say the old white guy isn’t a cartoon in and of itself, it’s the devil you know kind of vibe).
The great thing about the GOP, is that once you crack their bullshit shell game, it’s all easy. They’re sound bite machine generating, closeted, cynical, nonstarters. They’re not serious about fixing anything, or they’d hop in to the ring by now. Exploratory committees? Come on, stop pussy-footin’ and get in there! It says something that the first republican nominee debate was pushed back due to a lack of legitimate candidacy, then when the debate actually happens you get two characters up there mocking each other.
Maybe this has less to do with the cartoon characters and more the inflexibility of the right wing ideology. Cartoon characters, on the other hand, are the most flexible of all characters, so watching The Donald squeeze his clown shoes in to a right wing tasseled loafer has been comical enough. Now he’s pro-choice. His foreign policy mirrors his vacuous real estate development business. The only real political capitol he’s gotten is proclaiming he got Obama to show his birth certificate. I guess this is how you bridge the gap to encompass the fringe of the GOP, but that’s not nearly enough to propel anyone through an entire presidential campaign.
To see the right-wing punditry help The Donald shoe-horn his way in to legitimacy is where I started drawing the line. I’ve read that The Donald knows a thing or two about emerging from Bankruptcy, which of course would make him the perfect person to end this deficit baloney! So I guess that The Donald can also just out and out say that America is solvent, and if you start to argue, he’ll just cut you off and leave the room? Or if you bring up facts, he’ll outright ignore them and challenge the legitimacy of your fact finding when he just doesn’t plain believe you. Compelling attributes for the person who will be the face of this nation for four years. OR if he does say something, only to back down from it later by saying he didn’t say it or mean it in the context it was given!
See this is great for a cartoon character, who is not bound by the rules of reality! Why is the only important question being asked of The Donald is “What’s up with his hair?” That’s not important right now, nor will it ever be relevant to any situation that arises on the world stage, or on the campaign trail. What doesn’t he literally put his money where his mouth his and release his financial records? Are we as a country not going to be truly ready for the mammoth sized stacks of money he has? I think we all know his value is inflated so what’s the deal Donald?
Perhaps The Donald IS the perfect person to run our country, I mean, why not? What better represents the tired sagging ego of our greatness than this cartoon character? Hulk Hogan isn’t going to seriously run for president any time soon, so again, why not? About half the country is still trying to shoe-horn this country back into a fantasy land of 1950’s cold war nostalgia. We need these larger than life buffoons taking up valuable air time, delegitimizing the current true threat to us: the fledgling economy and this never ending recession.
Donald Trump is NOT running for President. He’s merely taken a page from the great “runner-in-chief” Newt Gingrich, and is fully reaping the rewards of a similar campaign. Honestly, that right-wing money is just laying there for anyone anti-Obama to take, it’s not hard. I’m not talking about those Tea Party kooks either, I’m talking those moneyed interests that have billions just laying around. If they’re not diving in to them from lofty heights, they’re pushing them out in to “Grass-roots” buffoonery and the like. So, yea, Donald Trump isn’t running, this is just one long exasperating commercial for The Donald.
I thought we were all in on the joke there for a bit. Just like the days when The Donald was hocking stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut or whatever other products having to do with absolutely nothing with real estate that he managed to find time to do commercials for. To say he is a character is doing a disservice to the multitudes of half-serious people that run our country as “politicians” and star in our motion pictures as “actors“. Who’s to say that America isn’t in love with cartoons? We’ve elected more than our fair share of cowboy’s, farmers, generals and the like. Hell, we endured 8 years under a pretend cowboy, so honestly, The Donald as a legitimate GOP candidate isn’t as far fetched at first blush.
But it is sad that this is our lot as a society. There’s constant talk of having “adult conversation”, but then some right-wing doofus whips out an over-sized pink mallet and swings it around, then slips on a banana peel crashing to the floor.
It seems like after Watergate, that we just couldn’t handle legitimate evil being unmasked. It was too real, or too devastating to the nation psyche that people are liars and crooks, even sitting president Nixon wasn’t immune from the clutches of evil. Then cartoon Jimmy Carter gets elected, and so begins our love affair with the characters.
Which is not to say it’s such a bad thing when the country’s doing great. As it’s done surprisingly from time to time. Yet, there always seems to be a massive hangover. The late 80’s, early 90’s, just recently with good ole’ W, those morning-afters are hellacious! Then we bounce back through the magic of the American Spirit!
I’ve gotten off track. The Donald is a cartoon, and it’s dangerous that he’s even being taken seriously. It is also no surprise that he is a GOP favorite as they seem to be the majority shareholder in the cartoon candidate manufacturing factory. You can just close your eyes and imagine them rolling off the line now: Palin, Gingrich, Huckabee, Regan, W., Bachmann, on and on. This is just recent memory. If it’s not a self-serious old white guy beating the drum of the same ole same ole’, it’s a cartoon (not to say the old white guy isn’t a cartoon in and of itself, it’s the devil you know kind of vibe).
The great thing about the GOP, is that once you crack their bullshit shell game, it’s all easy. They’re sound bite machine generating, closeted, cynical, nonstarters. They’re not serious about fixing anything, or they’d hop in to the ring by now. Exploratory committees? Come on, stop pussy-footin’ and get in there! It says something that the first republican nominee debate was pushed back due to a lack of legitimate candidacy, then when the debate actually happens you get two characters up there mocking each other.
Maybe this has less to do with the cartoon characters and more the inflexibility of the right wing ideology. Cartoon characters, on the other hand, are the most flexible of all characters, so watching The Donald squeeze his clown shoes in to a right wing tasseled loafer has been comical enough. Now he’s pro-choice. His foreign policy mirrors his vacuous real estate development business. The only real political capitol he’s gotten is proclaiming he got Obama to show his birth certificate. I guess this is how you bridge the gap to encompass the fringe of the GOP, but that’s not nearly enough to propel anyone through an entire presidential campaign.
To see the right-wing punditry help The Donald shoe-horn his way in to legitimacy is where I started drawing the line. I’ve read that The Donald knows a thing or two about emerging from Bankruptcy, which of course would make him the perfect person to end this deficit baloney! So I guess that The Donald can also just out and out say that America is solvent, and if you start to argue, he’ll just cut you off and leave the room? Or if you bring up facts, he’ll outright ignore them and challenge the legitimacy of your fact finding when he just doesn’t plain believe you. Compelling attributes for the person who will be the face of this nation for four years. OR if he does say something, only to back down from it later by saying he didn’t say it or mean it in the context it was given!
See this is great for a cartoon character, who is not bound by the rules of reality! Why is the only important question being asked of The Donald is “What’s up with his hair?” That’s not important right now, nor will it ever be relevant to any situation that arises on the world stage, or on the campaign trail. What doesn’t he literally put his money where his mouth his and release his financial records? Are we as a country not going to be truly ready for the mammoth sized stacks of money he has? I think we all know his value is inflated so what’s the deal Donald?
Perhaps The Donald IS the perfect person to run our country, I mean, why not? What better represents the tired sagging ego of our greatness than this cartoon character? Hulk Hogan isn’t going to seriously run for president any time soon, so again, why not? About half the country is still trying to shoe-horn this country back into a fantasy land of 1950’s cold war nostalgia. We need these larger than life buffoons taking up valuable air time, delegitimizing the current true threat to us: the fledgling economy and this never ending recession.
Monday, May 16, 2011
MSNBC V. Fox News
Well, I guess I’ll rag on the left-wing “liberals” today, seeing as I’ve done enough emotional damage to my psyche flinging myself on to the pile of also-ran’s who perpetuate the “right wing’s crazy” motif in type/blog/news/editorial/whathaveyou. If only to be put simply: The right wing will NEVER admit or cop to anything they say or do. They will either double down in their idiocy, speak loudly over you, or basically just never give you what you want. Which is to admit they’re wrong. They do not respect any one who’s on the “other side”, and apologizing to you for their ignorance just isn’t on the table. So, I bring beef to the left in the form of an observation I made recently.
I’m not a big fan of Rachel Maddow and her ilk on MSNBC. I find no pride in watching someone who got her start trying to climb on top of the clown car known as Pat Buchanan. Watching those two debate things was akin to washing your eyes with a brillo pad and pouring peroxide in to your ear holes. Since the departure of Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s prime time news block has just turned in to Diet Maddow, then Maddow Zero, then New Maddow…and finally Rachel Maddow herself! An inane block of similar news style that will NEVER allow MSNBC to overtake Fox News’ nightly programming.
The algorithm goes a little likes this “News Story. Banter, Banter (can substitute one Banter with Zany bewilderment), Chart/Graph, Then finish with an exasperate flourish”. Unlike Fox News, these ditto-head programs at least have NEWS and FACTS, but they’re all delivered in the 4/4 time signature style, that eventually reveals itself to casual observation.
It’s a double-edged sword to be sure. No one really wants, or respects the aping of Fox News but with Liberals motif that MSNBC has bought wholesale. But no one wants 3-4 hours of samey show programming either. Well, besides the right-wing Fox News crowd. But that’s a fundamental difference between the right and left wing buffoonery! Uninformed versus informed viewer ship. Fox News “informs” its viewership with the daily talking points memo, and supplements itself nicely with the talk radio that brings the message down from on high to enlighten the unwashed masses with regional flair. MSNBC’s crowd is typically more informed. They crack a paper open more often than not, they visit website’s that typically tell the truth, listen to (gasp)NPR. They may be a more boring people, but at least the liberal left-wing is informed enough, and can in fact be more open-minded about policy and politics in general, but they are not dumb…nor are they misinformed.
The idea that MSNBC is trying to function as a polar opposite to Fox News is a disservice to the programming and stewardship to those who are trying to actually function the channel as News. They also just can’t compete with the sheer cliff of ignorance that feeds the Fox News monster. The right-wing is a fear based monster. It constantly needs an enemy, and affront to their ideals and a challenger to their integrity. If the right-wing is not being oppressed by something, then it isn’t functioning properly. Is it any surprise that most of the right-wing is evangelical based? MSNBC has no skin in the game when it comes to patronizing the evangelicals. The only real messianic figure they had was Olbermann, and he left after he was denied sainthood by the guy’s upstairs. And even then he only mostly dealt with the old school right-wing aping of name calling and pooh-poohing also known as the Limbaugh.
And if we’re really being honest about this aspect of the political theatre, then this MSNBC/Fox News is just “wrasslin’”. It’s about advertising revenue and ego. Neither of which have a political leaning.
But the point of this rant is the rinse wash repeat of the Maddow clones that flood the MSNBC prime time slots. Even after the ridiculous “lean forward” ads of earlier this year, this block is no where near a competitive threat to the Fox News block. The only real threat to Fox News during that time is Monday Night football. Some of the problem with the MSNBC block is exactly how many takes a news story has and how many cycles of the Maddow-o-tron does a viewer need to “get” the story.
The modern journalist media is a sham and has only the barest of lip service paid to the real television journalism of the past. “Good Night, and Good Luck” indeed, sir! I get why every other “news” show on MSNBC is essentially a rip off of Maddow: it works. She doesn’t patronize viewers like Anderson Cooper, getting all real with you. She mostly stays behind her desk and prattles on while tugging at her hair. But this is the state of journalism today. It’s merely filler until the next block of commercials. It’s not news, it’s editorial. More importantly, it’s cable and the meat of the viewership just isn’t there. It’s still somewhat on the major networks, who have long ago abandoned any idea of a news department that actually delivers news. Thus, the standard is set for all “news” related endeavors. If you want eyes on it, you have to do it like this, or no one cares.
I’m not a big fan of Rachel Maddow and her ilk on MSNBC. I find no pride in watching someone who got her start trying to climb on top of the clown car known as Pat Buchanan. Watching those two debate things was akin to washing your eyes with a brillo pad and pouring peroxide in to your ear holes. Since the departure of Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s prime time news block has just turned in to Diet Maddow, then Maddow Zero, then New Maddow…and finally Rachel Maddow herself! An inane block of similar news style that will NEVER allow MSNBC to overtake Fox News’ nightly programming.
The algorithm goes a little likes this “News Story. Banter, Banter (can substitute one Banter with Zany bewilderment), Chart/Graph, Then finish with an exasperate flourish”. Unlike Fox News, these ditto-head programs at least have NEWS and FACTS, but they’re all delivered in the 4/4 time signature style, that eventually reveals itself to casual observation.
It’s a double-edged sword to be sure. No one really wants, or respects the aping of Fox News but with Liberals motif that MSNBC has bought wholesale. But no one wants 3-4 hours of samey show programming either. Well, besides the right-wing Fox News crowd. But that’s a fundamental difference between the right and left wing buffoonery! Uninformed versus informed viewer ship. Fox News “informs” its viewership with the daily talking points memo, and supplements itself nicely with the talk radio that brings the message down from on high to enlighten the unwashed masses with regional flair. MSNBC’s crowd is typically more informed. They crack a paper open more often than not, they visit website’s that typically tell the truth, listen to (gasp)NPR. They may be a more boring people, but at least the liberal left-wing is informed enough, and can in fact be more open-minded about policy and politics in general, but they are not dumb…nor are they misinformed.
The idea that MSNBC is trying to function as a polar opposite to Fox News is a disservice to the programming and stewardship to those who are trying to actually function the channel as News. They also just can’t compete with the sheer cliff of ignorance that feeds the Fox News monster. The right-wing is a fear based monster. It constantly needs an enemy, and affront to their ideals and a challenger to their integrity. If the right-wing is not being oppressed by something, then it isn’t functioning properly. Is it any surprise that most of the right-wing is evangelical based? MSNBC has no skin in the game when it comes to patronizing the evangelicals. The only real messianic figure they had was Olbermann, and he left after he was denied sainthood by the guy’s upstairs. And even then he only mostly dealt with the old school right-wing aping of name calling and pooh-poohing also known as the Limbaugh.
And if we’re really being honest about this aspect of the political theatre, then this MSNBC/Fox News is just “wrasslin’”. It’s about advertising revenue and ego. Neither of which have a political leaning.
But the point of this rant is the rinse wash repeat of the Maddow clones that flood the MSNBC prime time slots. Even after the ridiculous “lean forward” ads of earlier this year, this block is no where near a competitive threat to the Fox News block. The only real threat to Fox News during that time is Monday Night football. Some of the problem with the MSNBC block is exactly how many takes a news story has and how many cycles of the Maddow-o-tron does a viewer need to “get” the story.
The modern journalist media is a sham and has only the barest of lip service paid to the real television journalism of the past. “Good Night, and Good Luck” indeed, sir! I get why every other “news” show on MSNBC is essentially a rip off of Maddow: it works. She doesn’t patronize viewers like Anderson Cooper, getting all real with you. She mostly stays behind her desk and prattles on while tugging at her hair. But this is the state of journalism today. It’s merely filler until the next block of commercials. It’s not news, it’s editorial. More importantly, it’s cable and the meat of the viewership just isn’t there. It’s still somewhat on the major networks, who have long ago abandoned any idea of a news department that actually delivers news. Thus, the standard is set for all “news” related endeavors. If you want eyes on it, you have to do it like this, or no one cares.
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