Long, thick, full eyelashes are so universally understood as being a feminine feature. When animators want to differentiate two otherwise identical cartoon characters, they add lashes to the female. If you see two identical characters, one with long lashes, and one without, there's no question which one is female. But why? Men don't have eyelashes now? In point of fact, many men have long, thick, full eyelashes. Me, for example. My hairdresser, who is female, is envious of my lashes and often co
It's a common joke that the girlfriend will give her boyfriend a hard time for buying too many video games. Y'know, "whaddyu need with an Xbox, a Playstation, and a PC? Why do you need so many games?!", and so forth. But then the boyfriend will return the favor and criticize her for doing the same thing with shoes. That's always the stereotype--women love shoes and will fill a whole closet with them. Well, I guess I'm an anomaly--I do both.
I have an embarrassing number of game systems
Expanding on the recent theme of the last several entries...
I've been meaning to tackle this issue for years, and am just now getting around to it. If you're a gamer, and a regular denizen of the various interwebs, then you've probably heard the name Anita Sarkeesian at some point. (In fact, you're probably sick of hearing that name.) I'm not sure how relevant this issue still is, or if it's drifted away from the spotlight, but for some time, Sarkeesian was making quite a bit of noise a
[This is a Life Advice vent I wrote couple of years ago. I wanted to save it in my blog for easier access.]
I've had some stuff in my head for a long time that I need to organize and get down. I'm male, hetero, almost 30, single. I'm sick and tired of living in a society that perpetuates the unfair double standard that women are beautiful, and men are ugly, simian australopithacines that can be manipulated with sex. All my life, I've wanted to be beautiful, and all my life, I've felt li
Whether you were born in the most privileged part of the US, or the hellhole of Iraq, it seems to be a common sentiment that being a woman in this world is to be unlucky in some regard. Historical patriarchy has had its clear effects on women, which are still felt today. For the purpose of this essay, I'm disregarding the worst places in the world where women are truly denied the most basic of rights. Right here in my home of the US, it's commonly said that women have to fight and work twice as
*EDIT* I originally had an image of some busty women in swimsuits for the cover picture, but the staff recently decided that it was "a little too much"... ...after five years. Whatever. That's fine. I couldn't think of anything else that made sense for the cover picture, and my obsessive personality won't allow me to leave just one blog cover image blank, so, as a joke, I just thought I'd go hard in the complete opposite direction for the cover picture. And now, on with the show...
This entry is sure to upset a few people, though it is not my intention to offend anyone. I simply want to discuss reality as best I can.
I spend a fair amount of time criticizing religion, and writing and arguing for reason and rationality. I do this for many reasons. There's no shortage of reasons to oppose religion. Take your pick. Dogma of any kind is antithetical to conversation, logic, rational thought, and progress. Religion has caused a massive amount of senseless violence, de
During the 56th episode of his Making Sense podcast, entitled "Abusing Dolores", my favorite thinker and philosopher, Sam Harris, explained that it would be monstrously evil to create conscious, artificially intelligent machines that are capable of suffering. To do so would be a highly unethical crime, and would create suffering where there was none before. I completely agree, but I believe this begs a follow-up question--perhaps the most important question ever asked: if it's unethical to cre
Today's blog entry will be about the show for a change. I have always loved the lore surrounding cutie marks, and I find it fascinating to discuss them. I was prompted to write this post when I stumbled across a Dr. Wolf video in which he posed the question of whether or not Pear Butter rejected her cutie marks when she married Bright Mac. Such an idea was instantly captivating to me. Before I respond to it, I would like to post a short piece I wrote some time ago in a thread asking about cu
There's no question that we've made an enormous amount of social and scientific progress over the centuries, perhaps most of that progress being in the last half century or so. Even though the current political landscape and discourse can make us feel the contrary, things are definitely the best and most evolved that they've ever been in the history of our species. However, as I see it, there remains one major hurdle that desperately needs to be overcome in the near future: clearing up misconc
I am young and do not know many things. I do not how to fix political problems, but this I know: we must stop claiming that our political opponents want to destroy our country. Since the election (and probably for my entire life if I had been paying attention), I have read and heard countless times things such as, "liberal progressives will do anything to destroy our country," and "republicans will stop at nothing to destroy our country." It is the same on both sides. The fact is that neither si
I have been avoiding all movie spoilers with a meticulous level of dedication. As soon as the first teaser was released, I began avoiding most pony content. I stayed away from the forums for the most part, and I avoided watching anything pony related on youtube except for older things. I was determined to be completely surprised. I didn't want to know anything about the movie. Absolutely nothing. I wanted to walk into the theater completely blind and just be totally surprised. But earlier
I no longer like to identify as any part of the political spectrum, mostly because I believe that identity politics is utterly toxic tribalism that prevents us from talking honestly about issues, but also because I'm finding it increasingly difficult to see anywhere on the spectrum that's a comfortable fit. My views haven't changed much in the last decade, but the political sides sure have. For my whole life, I have considered myself left/liberal, and I still have what I would describe as "cla
Today I'd like to talk about transgender issues. I want to try to unravel and dispel as much misinformation as possible because I see so much confusion and frustration surrounding this issue. I also want to try to bridge some gaps and find some common ground between liberals and conservatives because there is a lot of hostility around this subject. My goal is to try to have an honest discussion, get at the facts, and provide my opinions and perspective, all while remaining compassionate and s
If, when, and only if it becomes exceedingly unnecessary to properly undermine the extensive and uninhabitable eccentricities, which, under normal circumstances would defeat the purpose of such extraneous matters, that are heavily scrutinized and routinely serviced on a regular basis with or without authorized clearance en route to various and/or particular paranormal anomalies, one must immediately compromise or police the accurate and precise microcosms in order to effectively prevent he outbr
Nothing would please me more than to reach a point where I don't feel the need to talk about religion anymore. Every time I write about it, I tell myself that it will be my final word, and that I will move on to other things. And yet, I cannot resist coming back to it given the kind of insanity I see on an almost daily basis. The other day, in the newspaper, I read an opinion piece by a local resident saying how America will always be a Christian nation, no matter how long time goes on for, a
[This is a Life Advice vent I wrote couple of years ago. I wanted to save it in my blog for easier access.]
Hi, I'm Justin Case. You may remember me from such vents as "Can Men Be Beautiful?". Today, I want to talk about another double standard that really irritates me.
I'm so sick of the continued double standard than men must always do the asking, the proposing, the buying of rings, etc. Often times, women still tend to wait to be asked out and proposed to, and if nothing h
Trump's inauguration was stomach churning enough already, but in my view, what was far more horrifying was the fact that the presidential inauguration is, in 2017, still chocked full of religious benedictions and prayers. Thomas Jefferson must be spinning in his grave.
There is supposed to be a figurative wall of separation between church and state. As I often point out, it is only by this wall that we are guaranteed freedom of religion in the United States. And yet, this wall has never bee
[EDIT 12/12/18)
Before reading this essay, please read this preface, which I am writing about nine months later. Of all of the blog entries I've written, this is the only one that I'm not quite certain I can still stand by 100%. A lot of it is okay, but I would definitely change some things and make some revisions if I was to write about this topic today. I'm not quite happy with some of the things I said, and some of the wording. I'll be the first to admit that I am not a gun expert at
So, it's a funny thing--I've been a huge Pony fan for years now, and the franchise is extremely important to me, and yet, I find myself dreading most new episodes, as well as the movie. I just...tend to expect the worst these days, and I'm not entirely sure why. The show has proven that it still has the right stuff, but I guess it has been rockier the past couple of seasons, with more ups and downs. A casual observer would think I'm nuts, and ask why the hell I stick around if I dread new epi
[This is a Life Advice vent I wrote couple of years ago. I wanted to save it in my blog for easier access. Some revisions have been made. To those of you who have been reading a bunch of my recent blog entries, yer gonna be like, "Oh, Celestia, there he goes again!" Yup, here I go again. But, in my defense, I didn't write all of these recent ones back to back. They were spread out over quite awhile in Life Advice, but I wanted to put them in here for easy access because I'm in the process
I made an incredible realization about my own mind while playing God of War III. In fact, it's so strange that I'm actually having trouble believing it.
There are several mini-games in God of War III that involve flying up and down the Chain of Balance, dodging obstacles and debris.
Here is one such scene. In this scene, you use your Icarus wings to fly up the chain. Just watch long enough to get the basic idea.
Now, during this scene, I find that I must have the y movement
I'd like to talk for a few minutes about adult gamers, and the surprising mindset still lingering in a few people today that video games are but a child's toy that a mature adult has no business playing. Considering where I am at the moment, the MLP forums, I'd be willing to make a deal to eat my computer if there's a single person on these forums who harbors this opinion, however, this opinion is still floating around in the world. There are still those who hear about an adult who plays video
I wasn't planning to ever write about this, and truth be told, I don't really want to, but I feel I must. I opened the paper the other day and saw a headline about yet another outbreak of measles in the northwestern United States. What has happened in the past few years in the U.S. with regard to vaccinations is so despicable, so intolerable, and so pernicious that it is truly beyond words or comprehension.
I've been aware of the "anti-vaccing" movement for as long as it's existed, but pa
