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Justin_Case001

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Blog Entries posted by Justin_Case001

  1. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Accidentally getting a little wet spot on your sleeve.  Y'know, like when you're washing your hands or something.  It's the f*cking worst.  No matter what you do, you can't get it dry.  You blow it with the hair dryer for an eternity, and it feels dry, so you move on go back to what you were doing, and what happens?  You feel the telltale damp spot on your wrist.  So you go back to the hair dryer again, and it feels dry, but you can't really tell because the heat masks the dampness.  So you blow cool air on it until it's room temperature so you can feel the dampness accurately, and it still feels dry.  You can't find any damp spot anywhere.  You feel it with the back of your hand or your cheek or somewhere that's more sensitive, and it feels dry.  So you move on.
    But it's still there....  IT'S STILL THERE....  
    You can't find the spot, but every time you start to move and go about your business, you can feel it on your wrist.  You know it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad...  
    You could set it on fire and burn it to ashes and you'd still feel the damp spot on your wrist.  The only way it ever feels dry again is to let it sit for a full 24 hours.  It's madness.  The WORST.
  2. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Arbitrary and pointless traditions regarding what you do with your hands while swearing an oath.
    Now yer just like, , the f*ck?  What is wrong with you?  Yup, I'm weird.  Weird things annoy me. 
    I absolutely hate the tradition of raising the right hand for oaths, and also placing the right hand over the heart for various pledges.  Why?  Just why?  What does it do?  What does it accomplish?  Does it mean anything?  Seriously.  Anything?  Why the right hand?  Would raising the left be worse?  Is the left hand dishonest?  So, if I raise my right hand in court, then everything is hunky dory, but if I raise my left, then... what?  The oath doesn't count?  I'm free to lie?  Or is everything I say automatically perjury?  Why the hand at all?  Why not the right foot?  What if hop on one foot and stick my right foot in the air while I recite the oath?  How's that?  I'm still putting a right body part in the air.  Shouldn't that suffice?  It's a helluva lot harder to hold your foot up than your hand, so if anything, shouldn't that count for more?  How about your right elbow?  Picture it.  You see how absurd this sounds?  How is the hand any different?  Explain to me, using logic, why the hand is any different and makes your oath more legitimate.  Ha.  Gotcha.  You can't. 
    And how about the hand over the heart?  Why does that make a pledge more legit?  Hmm?  Why not the liver?  Wouldn't that be awesome?  "Right hand over your liver, ready begin."  That would be the tops.  Why not any other organ?  Oh, right, I know--because the heart is the center of human emotions, and it knows things... except that it doesn't.    Contrary to all of our nonsensical ramblings about loving people with all of our hearts, and memorizing things by heart, (I wrote an entire entry on this, btw) even the stupidest mf-er on Earth knows that your heart houses no memories nor emotion.  Your brain does.  So, why don't we put our hands over our brains when we make a pledge?  Put it on top of your head.  There ya go.  Or, (and this is a novel idea) why don't we just do nothing?  Just speak the words.  Who f*cking cares where your hands are when you make pledges, oaths, and promises?  IT DOESN'T DO ANYTHING.
    Now, if, IF you believe in a specific religion, then placing your hand on that holy book and swearing on it does make some logical sense.  IF you believe it.  (That didn't violate any forum rules, did it?  )  But simply raising a hand or putting it anywhere else does nothing.  You're either honest or you're not.  You either mean the oath or you don't.  The location of your hand(s) is irrelevant.  It's meaningless.  It's stupid.  We only do it because it's tradition, and you know what traditions are?  Peer pressure from dead people.
    I swear, if I ever had to give courtroom testimony and take an oath, I'd probably get held in contempt for ranting about this.  I'd probably do it Larry David Curb style.  "Hey, judge, lemmie ask you something.  What's the point of the hand thing?"  Next thing you'd know, I'd be spending the night in jail.  Pffft.  Sweet merciful Celestia, our world is so dumb.
  3. Justin_Case001
    How in the wide, wide world of Equestria did it take me this long to get to this one?
    Y'know what really grinds me gears?  Dust.  Why...the...f*ck is it...absolutely...EVERYWHERE???!!!    I hate when my house is dusty, and I f*cking hate dusting.  Why does it accumulate so Celestia damned fast, even in a room with no windows that you keep closed up tight at all times?!  Why is the entire world made of dust??!!  Why is the universe so stupid??!!  Why does everything suck sooo MUCH??!! 
    On a related tangent, why does the verb "dusting" mean to remove dust?  No other word works like that.  Frosting a cake doesn't mean to remove the frosting.  Greasing an engine doesn't mean to remove the grease.  Oiling the hinges doesn't mean to remove the oil. 
    But wait, you can dust for fingerprints, and that means to add dust...
    ...now I'm confuzzled... 
    Well, anyway...
  5. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Self-ordering kiosks.  F*ck these things.  F*ck them to oblivion.
    Okay, what pisses me off isn't so much that ordering kiosks exist; it's when a restaurant forces you to use them and gives you no other option.  In other words, they have no human employees that will help you or take your order, and they literally refuse to give you face to face customer service.  Given my social anxiety and aversion to talking to people, you'd think I'd absolutely love these things, but you'd be wrong.  I despise these kiosks for two reasons.  One: I'd rather not touch a screen that countless other customers have been rubbing their grubby mitts on.    Unsanitary.
    And two: I have severe social anxiety as it is, and using something like this when other people are waiting for me makes me extremely flustered.  I just can't do something like this when I know others are standing behind me waiting.  I won't even use a self-service gas station if there are other people there.  I only get gas in the middle of the night when it's deserted.  I'd rather risk an armed robbery than try to pump gas when someone else is impatiently waiting in line.  If I'm using one of these kiosks, then the onus is entirely on me--if I'm having a hard time and taking awhile, then it's entirely on me, and I can feel the impatience and annoyance building in the people waiting, and that makes me collapse into a black hole of self-deprecating anxiety.  If I'm ordering from a human being, then the onus isn't on me.  I know how my mouth works, so I know I can say, "one burrito, hold the onions," without any trouble, and if the employee is new or something and is taking a long time to figure out the computer, then that's not my fault.  I feel no anxiety or pressure because I'm not the one who has to do anything.
    These ordering kiosks are bullsh*t.  They're basically just making customers do the employees' jobs for them.  They're just turning customers into unpaid employees so they can hire less people and save a buck.  If some people like 'em, that's fine, but they shouldn't be the only option, and that's the case at many places.  A lot of fast food restaurants are going this way these days, including lifelong favorites of mine, and I cannot describe how much I hate it.  You should always be able to order from a human if you so choose.  I usually like any new technology that allows me to avoid talking to a person, but at the same time, I think it's a dark and dangerous path to keep removing humanity from everything.  I hate the direction the world is going.  We all know that technology is isolating us and making us more lonely and disconnected than ever before, but all we do is just keep making it worse.  I'm not some old fogey; I love new tech, but I've also seen enough sci-fi to know how this ends.  We're just racing towards a cyberpunk dystopia where human beings are obsolete with the pedal to the metal.
  6. Justin_Case001
    Only long haired ponies will understand this one.
    Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Frizz days.
    Most of the time, my hair brushes out just fine.  I brush for a few minutes, and it's tangle free and the brush goes through smoothly with no resistance and no noise.  But then, occasionally, for reasons that are utterly mystifying and inscrutable. the hair just decides that it won't brush out, no matter f*cking what.  I never change my routine, I always condition, and all variables appear to be the same, including humidity level, but for seemingly no apparent reason, the hair just won't de-tangle, no matter how much I brush it.  It actually seems to re-tangle itself as I brush.  I can brush it until my arms and shoulders are literally so fatigued that I can't keep going, and it doesn't make one bit of difference, and every time I run the brush through, it sounds like tearing velcro.  It's the f*cking worst!! 
    And then the next day it will be right back to playing nice like nothing happened, even though everything is exactly the same.  The hell?? 
  7. Justin_Case001
    As I was watching The Dragon Prince, the same thing kept repeatedly popping into my head: "This is a kid's show??!  No, really, is this actually a kid's show?  Are we really sure that this is a kid's show?"
    I'm opting to forego the endless text wall this time in favor of something more concise and spoiler-free.  I'm not gonna drone on forever with a lengthy review.  I just needed to gush about The Dragon Prince for a couple of paragraphs.
    I had been eagerly anticipating the show for years, but I wanted to wait until it was finished before watching.  It exceeded my expectations.  The Dragon Prince is quite simply one of the greatest kid's show's ever made.  It's just a masterpiece by any metric, and the fact that it's ostensibly for kids just makes it an even more surprising feat.  I've always held the bending franchise (Last Airbender and Legend of Korra) up on a pedestal as the greatest kid's shows of all time.  I used to think that nothing could ever compare, that nothing would ever equal it.  Well, I'm here to say that DP is absolutely the equal of the bending franchise, and may even surpass it is certain areas.  It's the heir to Airbender. 
    DP is basically just Game of Thrones mixed with Lord of the Rings for kids.  Well, I'd say not for kids, just approved for kids.  It's for anyone and everyone.  Any fan of fantasy will love it.  What struck me time again was just what they were able to get away with.  It pushes the limits of what I thought possible for a kid's show.  It pushes the boundaries for romance, violence, and mature themes and morals.  The complexity and believability of the world is simply unparalleled, except by the bending franchise.  *Minor Spoiler* One scene in particular was easily the most violent, bloodiest, and most intense scene I've ever seen in anything rated for kids.  It was shocking and f*ckin awesome. 
    Many of the same things I said about Kipo And She-Ra can be said of DP as well, particularly when it comes to open-mindedness and advancing social thought, as well as disability representation.  I just watched those first, so I talked in-depth about them.  I don't really feel the need to repeat a bunch of it.  If I'd watched this first, then I would have written a long post for this one.  It amazes me how far kids' shows have come in a short time, and it may be the one and only thing that gives me a faint shred of hope for the future.
    The Dragon Prince is a towering masterpiece, and a must-watch.  So, my question to you is: why are you still here?!  GO!  WATCH IT!
     
  8. Justin_Case001
    Long time fans of my series... *snickers*... pffft, yeah, right.      A pony can dream, though, a pony can dream...   Anyway, readers may remember that I did an entry on newfangled light bulbs way back in episode 6.  It's time a legacy sequel!
    Y'know what really grinds my gears?  F*ckin' LED light bulbs.  They're so fickle and unreliable.  We have so many that flicker on and off or go dim and then bright again and weird sh*t like that.  And it's definitely the bulb, I guarantee you (not the fixture or the power).  Incandescent was a way more reliable technology.  In all these years, why haven't they figured out LEDs better?
    But y'know what's even worse?  LED flashlights.  I've never owned one LED flashlight that isn't a complete piece of fickle trash.  They flicker, they go off randomly, they turn off if you point them up, and back on when you point them down (which would indicate loose batteries, but still, why can't them make that work, then?)  The other day I had an LED flashlight do SOS on me.  I mean literally, it was flashing fast and then slow like Morse f*ckin code!  Then you shake it and it stops!  The F*CK??!!
    When I was a teenager, I had a 3-cell incandescent maglight.  Best, most reliable flashlight ever made, I'll tell you.  As an adult, I got a 3-cell LED maglight.  It was a flickering sh*tload of F*CK.  I don't know if it's actually the LED technology, or if they're just cutting corners elsewhere and making flashlights sh*ttier and chintzier these days, but I'm sick to death of it.  I just want a flashlight that turns on and f*ckin WORKS.  Reliably. 
  9. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Chocolate chip cookies today.  I feel like it's so hard to find a really good one.  I swear, I haven't had a really good chocolate chip cookie in 30 years.  Mrs. Fields' semi-sweet used to be my favorite as a kid, but they started to slip around 2000 or so.  They suck today.  And it's not just me--they used to be mom's favorite when I was a kid, too, and now she doesn't like 'em, either.  They really went downhill.
    When my parents were young and dating, they used to go to the Famous Amos store.  This was back when Famous Amos wasn't just a bag on the grocery store shelf, but they had a store where they baked 'em fresh.  It was a completely different kind of cookie than the grocery store ones.  Hearing my parents describe those... oh, sweet Celestia, they make it sound like an absolutely transcendent experience.  They say that those were the best cookies that have ever been, and nothing today can even remotely hold a candle.  The Famous Amos store hasn't existed for 40 years.  I hate that I never got to try those cookies.  Why can't they bring those back?  We can bring back dire wolves (I guess?  Apparently?), but we can't bring back those cookies?? 
    The best cookies I can find today are just... okay.  I mean, good, but nothing to write home about.  Nothing like decades ago.  Has every baker in the world just forgotten how to make good chocolate chip cookies??! 
  10. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Bad dreams.  Well, er, um, it's not exactly any one specific experience of having a bad dream that annoys me.  Well... heh...  I might be kinda weird, but as an adult, I actually find the experience of an occasional nightmare to be kinda fun!    I mean, when it's something wacky and crazy like some sci-fi horror.
    Lemmie start again.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Always having dreams about bad stuff and never good stuff.  I only dream about bad stuff--the stuff that stresses me out irl.  I basically only dream about two things.  So, see, the thing is, I'm pretty much a germaphobe, and I'm scared of the rona (covid).  I've never had it (a fact I'm quite proud of, btw ) and I'm f*cking terrified of long covid with brain fog.  I know I probably shouldn't be, but I am.  So, naturally I constantly have dreams of being surrounded and trapped by a mob of infected people coughing on me.  Sometimes the dream escalates to a much worse pandemic, like small pox, or something totally new and much worse, like a proper apocalyptic death plague with a 99% kill rate or something.
    So, there's that, and then my other frequent dream is so lame, stupid, and cliché that I'm embarrassed to admit it.  So, I was a Twilight Sparkle in school, in terms of grades and organization, and thus being tardy or not getting my homework done was my worst nightmare.  So, I'll have this recurring dream where I'm awakened by my mom knocking on my door and telling me I'm late for school.  I'm always the age I am now (nearly 40), but I'm still in high school.  I will then proceed to rampage around the house in sheer terror and panic trying to find all my school sh*t, but can't.  Then I realize that I haven't done my math homework in months.  Sometimes the dream ends there, and sometimes I make it to school but realize that I've forgotten where all my classes are and can't find my schedule.  I mean, how f*cking pathetic is that?!  Why do I still have these idiotic dreams at 40?!!
    And that's it.  I pretty much alternate between those two dreams.  Why can't I ever dream about anything pleasant??  Hear me out here--I'm lonely and miserable irl.  I've never been on a date or had a relationship in my life.  Fated to die a virgin.  Dreams are the one and only place where my brain has complete and utter autonomy, control, and power to deliver unto me absolutely any experience.  If it wanted to, my brain could make every sleep a blissful escape into a perfect paradise.  So why the f*ck doesn't it?!  Where's the downside here??!!  Why doesn't my brain just give me dreams of finding my true love and having fairy tale romances with her?  How 'bout a sex dream, huh??  Tha'd be nice.  Never had one.  I have to be a virgin in my dreams, too.  If I asked out a gorgeous woman, she'd probably say, "In your dreams, pal," to which I'd have to laugh and say, "NOPE, NOT THERE, EITHER!!"  I'm basically miserable all the time, so why can't my brain throw me a frickin' bone in the one place where I could be a little bit happy??
    I realize that fears and dreams and closely connected, and dreams are often the brain's attempt to deal with or work out real life fears or anxieties, but FOR F*CK'S SAKE!!    I mean, come on.  Why can't I ever dream about pleasant things?  Why does my brain hate me so much?  Why does my brain laugh at me and take pleasure in my suffering?  Why?  Why?  WHYYYY????!!!
    I even tried to learn how to induce lucid dreams for awhile, but it was kind of a dead end. 
    Why do brains have to be so annoying and stupid?  Doesn't my brain know that I'd be happier and healthier if it just fed me pleasant dreams?  Stupid brain.  Stupid, dumb, stupid, stupid, F*CKING brain. 
  11. Justin_Case001
    I think it's very common for people to look back longingly at the media they grew up with, especially during their formative teenage years, and think that that was the golden age of entertainment, and that it was so much better than the crap they churn out today.  I think a lot of this is nostalgia and rose-tinted glasses.  I mean, sure, there were some great classics of yesteryear, and a lot of revolutionary masterpieces, and sure, there's a lot of regurgitated slop today, like the endless Marvel machine.  (The Infinity Saga was good, but for the love of Celestia, let it go.)  But just because something is new doesn't mean it's worse, and the fact that you grew up with something doesn't automatically make it better.
    I've had the good fortune to watch a lot of amazing animated kid's shows in recent years, most of which I've made blog entries about.  I am properly blown away by the quality of animated shows today.  It seems like I just find one incredible gem after another.  It simply amazes me to think about just how much better kid's shows are today than when I was but a wee lad.
    I grew up in the ye olde '90's.  (Incidentally, the 1990's kind of seems like the last decade in which the world felt normal.)  Anyway, I've always loved animation, but the shows I grew up with were mostly cheap, low-effort, zany, wacky, off-the-wall slapstick comedy with no story, no continuity, zero character development, and no arcs.  I was raised by the likes of Rocko's Modern Life, AHHH! Real Monsters, Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Lab, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Ed, Edd, n Eddy, and assorted Looney Tunes.  Now, I'm not saying that all that stuff is bad, per se, but let's face it--it's fairly low caliber.  It's all kinda crap, honestly, but sometimes enjoyable crap.  It's like fast food.  It's crap, but sometimes it's tasty crap that hits the spot.  Sometimes it's just what you want, even if it's not high-quality.  I have an especially soft spot for Rocko--that was my favorite.  I'm very nostalgic for it, but I'm under no illusions that it's the greatest thing ever made.  I recently got to see some Courage, Dexter's Lab, and Ed, Edd, n Eddy for the first time in... sweet Celestia, gotta be well over twenty years.  (F*CK, I'm a dinosaur.  )  I was all geared up for this great trip down memory lane, and I was frankly shocked at how bad these shows really are.  Funny thing is, they were exactly as I remembered them.  The shows hadn't changed--I had.  What was once enjoyable was now totally boring.  I expect better now, because I've seen what a great kid's show can be.
    Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts is another outta the park home run.  Moderate spoilers ahead.  If you're interested, get out now.  Kipo is a unique, incredibly imaginative adventure with writing and mind-blowing twists that rival any show made for adults.  The show's protagonist, Kipo, a 13 year-old girl, lives in a post-apocalyptic world 200 years in the future.  At around our time, (the early 2020's) all animals started rapidly mutating as if evolution was accelerated by a factor of a million.  In the span of a few decades, animals across the planet had gained human-level intelligence and the powers of speech.  They rebelled (and we lost) and humans were forced to retreat and live in underground cities like Zion from The Matrix in order to survive.  Over the course of two centuries, the surface had been reshaped by animalkind, and was no longer hospitable to humans.
    Humanity didn't know how or why animals mutated.  Scientists in the underground cities attempted to unravel the mystery and find a solution.  Enter Kipo, the daughter of two of Earth's best scientists.  Unbeknownst to her, Kipo was genetically engineered with mutant animal DNA, making her a shape-shifting animal-human hybrid who holds the key to humanity's future.  After growing up underground for her entire life, Kipo finds herself suddenly thrust unto the hostile and alien surface world.  She must improvise, adapt, and overcome, and maybe, just maybe, find a way to make peace between humans and animals.
    I'm gonna leave it at that and not summarize the entire plot this time.  It's a spectacular show.  The premise is so creative, mature, and epic in scope that it easily could have been a live-action show for adults.  Seriously, all you'd need is a little blood, a few f-bombs, and maybe a sex scene or two and you'd have an adult sci-fi show that stands shoulder to shoulder with Westworld, The 100, The Last of Us, or anything like that.  The writing is superb, the characters dynamic and robust, each with their own backstories and motivations, and it's packed full of surprising twists and layers upon layers of intricately woven plot.
    At it's core, Kipo is about the dream of peace, acceptance, and friendship between all people, no matter how great their differences.  It's a story about letting go of the past and of all preconceived notions of what the world should be, and instead imagining what it could be.  For most of my life, I believed that death was one of the biggest impediments to progress.  Our lives aren't long enough to make good use of the knowledge we gain throughout it.  By the time we have enough knowledge and experience to know what we should do, we're often too old to do it.  And then we're dead.  And then we have to start all over with someone else.  I used to view that as a negative.  Too much time has to be constantly wasted trying to teach the next generation what's what.  But I don't think that way anymore.
    Steve Jobs called death the single greatest invention of life.  He believed that death was necessary for progress, and called it an agent of change.  He said that older people become set in their ways and only see the world the way it is now, often looking backward to times past and thinking that that's the only way the world can be.  He noted that young people look at the world anew, without any preconceptions, without any biases, prejudices, baggage, or longing for the past--they just see it now, and imagine what it could be.  He believed that that was necessary for change, and I think he was onto something.  As we age, we do indeed tend to cling to old ways of doing things, even if we don't realize it, and imagine that that's the only way.  It takes a brand new, fresh perspective to see new possibilities.  We need the ideas of young people who have never been indoctrinated by the past in order to envision better futures.  I don't think I've ever seen a show that better illustrates, or a character that better embodies this idea than Kipo.  It's inspiring in many ways.
    I can't get over how good so many kid's shows are today.  The scope, scale, and detail of many of these shows are absolutely equal to adult dramas.  Where were these shows when I was a kid??  If I had had Kipo, FIM, the rebooted She-Ra, Amphibia, the Bending franchise, etc when I was 8 or 10 years old, it woulda melted my f*ckin face off!  I mean, it melts my f*ckin face off today!  To be fair, there were cartoons of yore that attempted arcs and big stories.  There was the original She-Ra and He-Man, but, I mean, pfft, c'mon.  Kinda crappy.  Pony G1 attempted to be a big fantasy adventure.  Again, kinda crappy, imo.  I was big into X-Men: The Animated Series, which I talked about awhile ago.  That was a mixed bag.  I also loved Spider-Man: The Animated Series.  That was okay.  Oh, Batman as well.  There was a lot of superhero stuff.  That stuff was... I'd say okay not great.  None of it holds a candle to the shows I've written about in my blog.
    Sadly, I think that a big reason for the lower quality of kid's shows in times past was simply an unfair, undeserved mindset by adults that kids were too dumb to understand complex shows, and wouldn't have the attention spans for arcs.  But that's clearly not true.  I'm glad to see that the makers of kid's entertainment now take the shows and their audience more seriously.  There has never been a better time for animated kid's shows than right now.  It's truly a golden age.
  12. Justin_Case001
    I'm probably gonna take some heat for this one, but I don't care.
    Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Gender reveals.  Especially the big, lavish parties.  The entire concept of elaborate gender reveals is one of the stupidest, most asinine things humanity has ever created, and is one of the things that has probably caused super advanced aliens to look at us from orbit and go, "nope", and continue on their merry way.
    Yeah, let's spend a bunch of money and resources and pollute the environment with a bunch of garbage just to tell everyone something that we could say by just speaking one word.  Let's release balloons that are just going to land somewhere and be more plastic waste, let's throw f*cking confetti everywhere make a huge f*cking mess, let's fill the air with colored smoke, and let's have a f*cking crop duster do a flyby with colored powder sh*t, and for what?  So everyone can get excited and applaud?  What else do you expect them to do?!  I mean, seriously, think about this for a second--is there any outcome that will result in a different reaction??  Is the audience hoping for one over the other?  I mean, if so, they're certainly not going to say it!  You think the audience is going to boo and hiss depending on the color?  They just cheer either f*cking way!  What else are they gonna do??!  There is NO F*CKING POINT!
    Gender reveal... PFFFFT.    *Spits on ground*  So stupid.  Either wait until the little urchin is born, or if you wanna tell people sooner, then just tell them.  Y'know, with your mouth hole.
  13. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Inaccurate use of the word "digital".
    When a movie or game releases a "digital" version, what does that mean?  When a movie is advertised as being available on DVD, blu-ray, and digital, what does the digital mean?  When Microsoft and Sony advertise all digital Xboxes and Playstations, what does that mean?  I'll tell you what they think it means, and what most people assume it means--download or streaming only.  No physical media.  I.e. no optical discs.  I.e. no DVDs or blu-ray discs.  ... uh... huh....
     
    Pop quiz.  What does the first "D" in "DVD" stand for?  I'll give you a hint:
    IT'S NOT ANALOG!!!!
    Time for some tech-ed.  Optical discs (i.e. CDs, DVDs, and blu-rays) are D I G I T A L!!!!  Digital does not mean download/streaming only.  It means pertaining to digits, i.e. data expressed numerically, usually in binary, to discretely represent all variables, which is readable and manipulable by a computer.  That's how data is stored on optical discs!!  The opposite of digital is not physical media, it's analog.  Analog means representing data by measurement of a continuous physical variable, such as voltage or pressure.  Cassette tapes, VHS tapes, and vinyl records are analog.
    So, a DVD or blu-ray movie is digital.  A game console with an optical disc drive is digital.  Well, actually, if we want to split hairs, none of these game consoles are truly all digital, because the controllers have analog sticks! 
    Stop calling the non-physical media options "digital only".  Just stop.  Call it what it actually is: download/streaming only.  If you don't, so help me Celestia, I'll... I'LL...
     
  14. Justin_Case001
    This one might be a little insider baseball.
    Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Terminal commands on  Linux.  Anyone who uses any Linux based OS knows that if you want to do anything more than just the basic layperson stuff that comes bundled with the OS (like word processing, web browsing, listening to music, etc), then at some point you're going to come face to face with the terminal (aka the console or command line) for some advanced operation.  I don't mind this, but what annoys the piss outta me is simply the fact that there's no standard manual or reference for the damn console commands!  How is anyone supposed to know what they are??!  MAGIC??!!  The only way that I have ever figured out how to learn a command is to google it and find some friendly, helpful user on Ask Ubuntu, or OMG! Ubuntu, or It's FOSS that shares their divine computing wisdom.  And there's no shortage of those people--any command you want to know, there's somebody who's posted it.  But why should that be the only way?  And how did those people learn 'em, huh??!  MAGIC??!!  Why don't the distros have a website with a comprehensive manual of console commands so that one can actually learn rather than just randomly googling until you find someone else who's posted the answer??  Drives me nuts. 
  15. Justin_Case001

    Plastic Planet

    By Justin_Case001,


    .
    It's been awhile, but today I'm going to write about something deadly serious again.  Hopefully this post won't violate forum rules about controversy.  I don't think it will.  It's not going to touch any of the banned, taboo subjects.  I think it should be fine.  We'll see.  Fingers crossed.
    This is a topic I already talked about in the Grind My Gears posts "Litter" and "Glitter", but it's so important that I felt it demanded more serious and comprehensive attention.
    Regardless of your beliefs or worldview, it cannot be denied that our planet is in trouble.  The environment needs help.  We're trashing the planet, and we need to clean it up.  It shouldn't matter what side you come down on with regards to any specific debate that has become controversial, I think that everyone, from every side, can agree that there's too much trash on Earth and that we need to make less of it and clean this sh*t up.  I don't think that's a debatable or controversial statement.  If it is, there we're in a lot more trouble than I thought.
    This post is primarily about our excessive production of plastic, and specifically frivolous, unnecessary plastic.  Plastic has become a huge problem.  I think most people by now have heard at least some of the frightening truths.  We all know that the ocean is absolutely filled with plastic.  I am given to understand that there's currently more plastic in the ocean than fish by weight.  Or, if we're not there yet, we will be soon.  The problem of micro plastic in the ocean is particularly horrifying.  The ocean is saturated with plastic that has broken down and dissolved into microscopic particles.  Because of this, massive amounts of marine life are consuming plastic, and therefore most of the seafood we eat contains plastic.  Cut open that salmon?  Plastic.  Look at that canned tuna under a microscope?  Plastic.  Scoop up a cupful of seawater from anywhere in the world?  Plastic.  It's everywhere.  It's estimated that most people consume the mass of a credit card worth of plastic each week.
    What's most alarming of all is the fact that we're still moving in the wrong direction, fast.  Unless I've been grossly misinformed, plastic production is only increasing each year.  No matter how bad it gets, we just ramp it up more and more because every incentive is pointing the wrong way.  I read somewhere that all plastic that has ever been produced on Earth was made after 2015.  That's terrifying.  Now, I don't remember where I read that, but I remember feeling that the source was credible.  That's hardly a rock solid argument, I know, but I'm not asking you to take my word for it.  Research it for yourself.  Whether that figure is accurate or not is irrelevant; the point is that we have a serious problem, and we need to act quickly.  It seems like we've been running an experiment for many decades now to see how quickly we can transform all matter on planet Earth into plastic, and it looks to me like we're doing a pretty good job so far.  If we want to have a habitable planet, if we want future generations to have a place to live--if that's something that we actually care about--then we need to do something about this, now.
    I don't even know where to begin with regards to cleaning up the existing mess, but I have a simple and easily implementable suggestion for decreasing the amount that we add to this problem.  All of us need to start radically and immediately rethinking our use, consumption, and purchase of completely unnecessary, disposable plastic.  In other words, we need to stop buying pointless plastic sh*t that just becomes trash after one use.  This is actually a very easy change, believe it or not.  I'm not asking for a drastic change of lifestyle here.  I'm suggesting that we stop our use of purely aesthetic plastic crap that is designed to be thrown in the garbage at the end of the day.  Specifically, we need to stop buying things like confetti, streamers, and balloons.  Disposable, one-time use party decorations were never a good idea, but they didn't seem too detrimental in a time where there weren't nearly so many of us on the planet, and it felt like we could never take enough from the planet, or produce enough trash, to really impact anything.  At this point in human history, disposable party decorations are completely indefensible.  Ideally, confetti, streamers, balloons and the like should be illegal.
    Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.  Sorry, Pinkie, but this is the real world where our food is full of plastic.  Now, I'm really not suggesting anything extreme here.  I'm not suggesting that we cease all production of anything that's not absolutely essential for survival.  No, not at all.  I'm not saying that we can't have plastic toys.  I'm not saying that we can't have decorations, including plastic ones.  I'm not saying that we can't decorate for holidays or parties.  No, not at all.  I mean, perhaps that is what it would actually take to save the planet, but I also don't think it's realistically possible to get society to go along with that.  Nobody would stand for it.  Saving the environment is rather pointless if we enact measures so draconian that it causes society to blow up.  We can't force changes like that.  We can't just pass laws and then hold guns to people's heads to force them not to buy balloons.  That doesn't work.  That's not how any rules have ever worked.  To change society, you have to change the way people think, and laws don't work unless the majority of people willingly obey them because they feel the law is just.  That's why I'm trying to encourage a voluntary change in thought and behavior.
    I'm not asking for us to give up everything that's fun.  I'm not prepared for that kind of change myself, either, and I don't think that we really have to go that far.  At this point, all I'm suggesting is that we stop buying things that are specifically designed to be used once, then thrown away, and which serve no purpose other than aesthetic.  I'm not asking for a ban on plastic plates, cups and utensils, either.  We should certainly try our best to limit our use of such things, but there are times when you need 'em.  I'm just asking that we stop using things like confetti, balloons, and streamers, or any other one-time use, disposable decorations.  Think about something like confetti for a moment: it's literally just garbage that makes a short detour on it's way to the trash can.  Companies produce literal garbage which we then throw around the room or whatever before sweeping it up and tossing it into the trash can.  Confetti is specifically designed to end up in the garbage by the end of the day.  That's its purpose.  This kind of product is absolutely inexcusable and unacceptable.
    I encourage everyone to give a moment's thought to whatever you're buying, and only buy things that either serve a necessary purpose, or will be saved and reused.  You can still have decorations, but only buy decorations that you plan on saving and reusing.  Don't buy ones that you're going to turn into trash immediately after the event is over.  Granted it's better if the temporary decorations are paper or cardboard because those are much more recyclable, but we still shouldn't be using such things if they're only going to get one use.  Recycling isn't a magic bullet.  Putting something into a recycling bin, even the most recyclable things like paper and glass, does not at all mean that you've somehow magically canceled all resource consumption and waste production.  Perhaps one day we will have 100% efficient Star Trek matter recyclers that break down any matter into raw elements for reassembly, but at the moment, recycling still costs money, time, resources, and humanpower.  It's much better environmentally to never produce or use something in the first place than to have to recycle it.  Trash is bad, recycling is better, never making it to begin with is best.
    Just to further drill the point home, you can absolutely still live the lifestyle you're accustomed to, but just don't buy plastic crap if you're not going to save it and reuse it.  As long as the item in question is going to see some reasonable amount of reuse, or if it's a somewhat permanent display piece, then I have no problem with it.  Just end your relationship with disposable party decorations.  And the kicker is that it really won't make your life any worse.  Seriously.  If you feel upset or offended at the prospect of not buying balloons and confetti for your party, I invite you to simply buy a few colorful, festive, semi-permanent decorations instead, and save and reuse them.  I think you'll quickly discover that your life and your party will be just as fun, and you won't miss the disposable crap at all.  The balloons are not where the fun comes from anyway.
    There are other easy areas where we can rethink and change our habits with absolutely zero negative affect on our lives.  Gift wrapping is a big one.  Wrapping holiday presents in extravagant wrapping paper with bows and ribbons that get thrown away is also completely indefensible at this point in history.  It's also totally unnecessary for our enjoyment as well.  Instead of buying, using, and discarding all that extra crap, try wrapping presents in something that you have anyway, such as newspaper.  Save the Sunday comics all year so that your presents will still be colorful.  Does it look as perfect and beautiful and artistically crafted holiday wrapping paper?  Well, no, but isn't it good enough?  Can't the Sunday funnies be sufficient?  Isn't that worth not eating a credit card worth of plastic a week?
    If you don't subscribe to a paper, or you'd rather still have something more fancy looking, then do what my family does--we bought a selection of nice, festive gift bags, and we put our Christmas presents in those each year, and when we're done, we carefully fold the bags up and put them away for use next year.  We've been using the same bags for over a decade.  If picking out new wrapping paper each year is something that you really look forward to, then I say find something else to look forward to.  Honestly, it's a really small price to pay.
    Here's another tip from my family: bring your own reusable containers into restaurants for the leftovers so you don't have to ask for a disposable one.  If you really want to go the distance, bring your own metal spoon to self-serve frozen yogurt places.  Just make sure you stop them before the grab a plastic one and stick it in the yogurt.
    There are easy things we can all do to slow the transformation of Earth into a plastic planet, and it doesn't require us making any real sacrifices.  You don't need the disposable decorations.  You really don't.  Please stop and think before you buy, and if the product is going to end up in the trash can by the end of the day, then skip it.
  16. Justin_Case001
    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 axis inverted. My brain expects this to behave like a flight sim. It feels like it should play like Starfox. I should tilt the stick up and move down, and vice versa. If I use normal axes, I can't play it to save my life. I die every time. With inverted, I pass it on the first try every time.
    Now check this out. In this scene, you free fall down the chain.

    During this scene, I have to have normal controls, or I can't do it! With an inverted y-axis, I can't play, and I die every time! With normal controls, I'm flawless every time. There is absolutely no functional difference between these scenes whatsoever. Literally the only difference is that you can see your wings in one, and not the other. The only explanation for this phenomenon is simply the knowledge that I'm ascending in one, and falling in the other. For some reason, my brain expects ascension to behave like a flight sim, but free falling to behave normally. If the devs removed the wings from the first scene, and told me that I was falling, I would probably need normal axes, and vice versa on the second scene. This stunning realization about the expectations of my mind has me reeling. I don't like feeling so uncertain. I'm the type of person who wants all things to make logical sense. I want to be able to play these scenes consistently with ONE control type (I don't really care which). But I can't. This phenomenon duplicates itself every time I play. It's not a problem, and it's kinda neat, really, but it makes my brain itch because it feels like my world won't cohere. This is irrefutable proof of how belief and expectation can radically alter your brain's entire way of functioning. How f*cking crazy is that?!!
  17. Justin_Case001

    Anime Recs

    By Justin_Case001,


    .
    I enjoy reviewing animated shows in this blog, like LPS and Miraculous Ladybug.  I'd like to talk about anime as well, but it's too overwhelming to try to write a separate blog about every show I watch.  It's too many, and let's be honest--who the hell wants to read all that anyway?  That's why I've decided to lump it all together into one entry where I list my anime recommendations with just a couple of spoiler-free tidbits about each one.  This blog will be on-going.  I will periodically update it with more recs as I watch more shows.
    But first a short introduction.  My history with anime is interesting.  I've always loved it, but I wasn't really able to actualize my love of it until pretty recently.  See, in jr high and high school, I loved the idea of anime, but I never really found any that I liked.  Some of my friends were massive anime fans.  One was a total weeb.  They watched anime constantly and I kinda got forced into it when we were all together, but I hated it because all the animes they wanted to watch were either nothing but over-the-top, action-packed action with zero character development, or ridiculous, off-the-wall, zany, asinine slapstick, both of which I don't care for in anime.  It was really difficult to find anything I liked because there wasn't any streaming at the time, and physical media of that variety was also hard to come by.  No Amazon or other easy online places to order anything you want.  No Crunchyroll, either.  So, it was mostly what was on tv, which mostly sucked.  It put me off for a long time, but I always wanted to get back into anime, or rather get into it properly for the first time.  Netflix has tons of anime, and after years of trying and failing to make the time, I finally started getting into it and I'm having a blast.  I'm finally finding the type of stuff I always wanted--real, emotional character development with poignant, useful messages and morals.
    Before I get into my recs, I want to define a term I frequently use--anime distortion, or sometimes just distortion for short.  What I don't care for is when the animation and art style changes wildly depending on the character's emotions, and they draw them in silly, wacky ways.  Like, so, for example, a character gets startled, and their face suddenly loses all detail, their eyes become black dashes, their mouth gapes open and takes up half their head, and giant, disembodied sweat drops fall down beside their head.  Or maybe they get excited and their eyes and mouth turn into tiny triangles or something, or they turn into a little starfish person with tiny points for arms and legs and they fly around the room with flashing colored backgrounds or something, or they turn bright red and scream and their head turns ginormous or something.  It's a little hard to describe, but if you watch anime, then you know exactly what I'm talking about.  In fact, you're probably doing the Drache meme grin and point right now.
    So, yeah, not a big fan of that stuff.  I prefer the characters to stay realistic and maintain plausible shapes to their faces and bodies despite the emotions.  I refer to this as having a law of conservation of shape.  No starfish people, please.  But I'll tolerate a little of the anime distortion if the story and characters are good enough.
    So, my recs.  Here we go.
    The Shape of Voice (film) - called "A Silent Voice" on Netflix for some stupid reason.  Probably the best anime thing of any kind that I've ever seen, and one of the best movies I've ever seen, period.  Takes itself very seriously--zero anime distortion. March Comes in Like a Lion (series) - A little more of the distortion than I'd prefer, but it's tolerable, and the story and characters are incredible.  Some of the most poignant, intense, gut-wrenching, and hard hitting themes I've ever seen in a cartoon.  Masterpiece.  Every child on Earth should see this when they're old enough to understand it, but before it's too late to make a difference.  You'll understand what I mean. Welcome to the NHK (series) - A smidgen of anime distortion, but not bad.  Worth it for the wild roller coaster ride of emotions.  My personal favorite anime of all time. Cowboy Bebop (series + movie) - I'm sure you're already familiar with it.  Who isn't?  No distortions.  Sci-fi masterpiece. A Lull in the Sea (series) - Now, this one is really interesting.  It's part real life, and a bit whimsical fantasy, and a most unexpected gem.  I was on the fence for the first few episodes, and it's a bit contrived and sappy at times, and a little soapy as well, but I ended up being blown away by how deeply emotional it was.  It's not gonna be for everyone, though.  If you're put off by a little melodrama and teen romance, then you probably won't like it.  One of the most beautiful art styles I've seen in a cartoon.  Zero distortions. Children of the Sea (film) - one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen in my life... but not in a bad way.  Hard to follow the plot, but it's probably the most gorgeous art style and animation I've ever seen.  The detail packed into every frame is just mindblowing.  It's just simply one of the most joyous sights to behold that I've ever seen in animation.  Zero distortion.  As far from stereotypical distortion anime as you can get. Toradora! (series) - A high school romance, but not as contrived or melodramatic as Lull.  Great, interesting characters.  A touch of distortion, but not bad at all. Violet Evergarden (series + 2 movies) - one of the best things I've ever seen in my life, of any kind.  It's incredible.  I can't recommend it enough.  I haven't one bad thing to say about it.  It even has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in anything.  I won't say anything about it because it's better to just let it all be a surprise, but I will say that I shed more tears during this than anything I've ever seen.  Zero distortion. Vinland Saga (series) - An intense, hardcore, extremely brutal show set in the time of the vikings.  No distortions. Ouran High School Host Club (series) - this was a most unexpected and pleasant surprise for me.  It's a lighthearted and funny show sprinkled with sweet, touching moments.  It's extremely heavy on the anime distortions, however, but what surprised me is that I actually didn't mind!  I kinda grew to like it, in fact!  It's the first and only case of anime distortion that I've liked.  Maybe I'm not as allergic to it as I thought.  Maybe I just didn't like the distortion I saw back in high school because the characters sucked.  Maybe I actually like some distortion once in awhile if the characters are good and funny.  The Host Club characters are funny and charming, but dynamic and deep enough that I actually cared about them.  Omg--I loved the distortions of the club leader, Tamaki.  He was hysterical. From Me to You (series) - A quite decent high school romcom.  Very heartfelt and sentimental.  Frequent distortions and sappiness belie some surprisingly deep and mature themes and messages.  Story moves a bit slowly with a lot of filler, but still very enjoyable if you like this sort of thing. The Quintessential Quintuplets (series + movie) - Easily the best high school romcom I've ever seen (and I've seen quite a few).  Not as high caliber as something like Violet or March, but lots of fun, memorable characters, and makes some daring moves that a lot of romcoms are afraid to.  No distortion.  Ridiculously sexy.  I mean, it's basically a soft, soft, softcore porn without actually being pornographic.  Make sure you watch the movie after the series, as that serves as the series finale. Carole & Tuesday (series) - a stunning, beautiful, distortion-free masterpiece with some truly incredible music.  A few of the songs rank among my favorites of all time, with some of the best vocal performances I've ever heard.
  18. Justin_Case001

    Episode 136 - OS EOL

    By Justin_Case001,


    .
    Hey.  Y'know what really, really REALLY grinds my gears?  Operating system end of life.
    I've already ranted about how much I hate change.  Twice!  But this demands its own entry.  I basically live on my computers, and I am so, so f*cking sick of having my life and my world uprooted and upended and thrown into chaos every few years when my operating systems reach their Celestia damned "end of life".  Why, why, WHY in the name of Celestia's sunny ass do they have to kill operating systems all the time?!  Why can't they just keep supporting them and keep updating them?  Yeah, I know--because then Microsoft couldn't extort more money out of people every few years.  But y'know what?  You're not even free from this bullsh*t on freaking LINUX!!  Oh sure, it's far less painful to upgrade to the next major Linux distro version than the new Windows, but it can still be a b*tch in its own right.  It's still a pain, it's still an annoyance, and it's still a huge inconvenience.
    I just want play some freaking games.  That's all.  I just want a little time to play some freaking games without constant software changing bullsh*t.  I'm so sick of chasing this moving target.  I'm so sick of the constant, tireless maintenance, the constant work of staying on top of the constantly evolving tech just so that things continue to function.  I feel like 10% of the time spent at my computer is actually playing a game, and 90% is just updating, upgrading, installing, maintenance, etc.  I just wish software would stop moving, just for a little while, so I could get a moment's peace to play a few games without my OS nagging me that it's dead and I need a new one.    But then the hackers would win. 
    Yeah, I know, I know--it's a pretty nice and privileged problem to have.  At least I'm not getting blowed up every day.  I'm grateful for that.
  19. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Bad and/or unnecessary game remasters and/or remakes.
    Don't get me wrong--a lot of remasters and remakes are fine.  Many are warranted and a huge improvement.  But many of them are also totally unnecessary, and some of them actually wreck things, in my opinion.  Firstly, the game industry is absolutely obsessed with remastering games.  They release remasters so soon after the original that there's basically no point.  Why remaster a PS4 game for PS5?  Is it really that different?  Is it worth the time, effort, money, humanpower, etc?  Wouldn't all that be better spent on a new game?  I don't think a remaster or remake is warranted until it's at least two console generations back.  In other words, remastering or remaking a PS3 game for PS5 is okay, but remaking PS4 for PS5 is just silly and unnecessary.  As an example, I don't think anyone was screaming and clamoring for a Horizon Zero Dawn remaster.  What's the point?  Oh, but we all know what the point is, thought, right?  Slap a few more trees and rocks in the game, and then you can force everyone to buy it all over again!  MO MONEY!!!
    But what annoys me much more are remakes that actually ruin something.  When choosing any game, I will very often go for an original over a remaster.  I am usually more interested in seeing the developer's original vision and art style.  I want to experience that specific moment in gaming history.  I feel like many remakes actually ruin the art style.  Now, there's no question that every remaster/remake ever made is technically superior to the original, meaning that they're higher fidelity.  That's axiomatic.  But higher fidelity does not always a better experience make.  Art style and graphics are different, and in many cases, the original has a specific art style that is lost in a remake.  A simple texture upscale so that old games can be played on new, big screen and not be blurry is fine and dandy, but totally remaking the game often screws up the original intended look or experience.
    There's no better example than The Last of Us.  (I'm sure everyone's played it by now, but this is spoiler-free.  Just a couple screenshots.)  The remaster is fine--just an upscale.  But the remake ruins the character's faces, in my opinion.  They're all off, but Ellie is the worst.  Check it out:
    Obviously, the remake is far superior technically, with much higher fidelity, but original Ellie is sooooo much cuter.  In my opinion.  They ruined her face.  I bought the original on PS3 years ago, but due to life getting in the way, I never played it.  I finally got around to playing in, and just finished it a few weeks ago.  I loved it, but I'm also so glad that I played the original, and that I also didn't even see the remake until after I'd finished.  I really don't care for the remake faces, and think they ruin the characters.  Oh, but wait!  They added an extra couple of trees in the background behind Ellie in that scene, so that's makes all the difference!  Yup.  So much better!  Pffft. 
    If given a choice, the vast majority of the time, I'll pick originals.  I love good graphics, but I want to see the original art style.
  20. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  The phrase "once and for all".  It's so overused.  It's such a cliché in movies and TV, especially epic fantasies and the like.  It's like a requirement for any movie with a sword battle in it at any point.  It's like the Wilhelm scream.  It's just ubiquitous.  It's so contrived.  Lemmie tell ya, when a hero boldly proclaims "ONCE AND FOR ALL!", that's when I stop caring.  I'm out.  Too melodramatic.
  21. Justin_Case001

    She+She (Ra)

    By Justin_Case001,


    .
    Stop reading this blog right now and go watch the Netflix reboot of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.  Seriously.  Go.  NOW.  Git, I say, GIT!  Shoo!
    ...
    Are you still here?!    Whaddid I just say?  Scram!  You should be watching it right now!
    Oh, very well.  I guess if you insist on reading, I can't stop you. 
     
    The trouble with a show as good as She-Ra is that it raises the bar so high that most everything else just feels like a disappointment afterwards.  She-Ra is a game-changing, life-changing experience.  If I were to make a list of all time best kids' cartoons, I'd probably rank She-Ra number 3, right after Last Airbender and Legend of Korra.  (Nothing will ever beat the Bending franchise, but She-Ra is downright competitive with it.)
    I avoid spoilers like the plague (or in my case, rather like the 'rona), but in many cases, such as with Airbender, I at least hear that it's really good, and a must-watch.  My experience with She-Ra was absolutely optimal--I knew nothing.  I didn't even know it existed.  I had never heard one thing said about it.  I just saw the thumbnail on Netflix and thought, "Oh, they rebooted the old one?  Hmm.  Girly?  Magical adventure?  Sure.  I'll give it a shot.  I'm in."  Was it good?  Was it bad?  I had no idea!  As with most shows like this, I went in with fairly mediocre expectations.  I never really get my hopes up, and then I'll pleasantly surprised when I find a great one.  I love that experience.  I love just stumbling onto something amazing with no prior knowledge.
    She-Ra blew my freaking mind.  Melted my face off.  Like in Raiders.  Y'know, the face melting guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  It was so good that it did that to me.  Like so good you can't even look at it.  Like the ark.
    Okay, I'm done goofing around.  Time to get serious. 
    She-Ra is a fantastic magical, action adventure with a tight, concise story arc, zero filler, and incredible, deep, dynamic, relatable, charismatic, memorable characters with intense, phenomenal arcs.  If you're intrigued, you should probably go now before reading any more.  It's a incredible show by any and every metric, but for me personally, what put it over the top and made it one of the most special and memorable TV experiences of my life was its game-changing LGBT representation.  (If you want more letters on that acronym, that's fine.  Many people put the Q.  I personally leave the Q off.  I'm not anti-Q people, I just feel that the acronym is zippier and more memorable without the Q.  I just like it.  I'm old school.  If you like the Q, use the Q.  I'm okay with the Q.  Some people add more letters, and at that point, I just kinda feel like, don't you have enough?  How many letters do you really need?  It just gets to be a little gratuitous, y'know?  Too much to type, too much to remember.  I just stick with the original four.  I'm not trying to exclude anyone; that's just how I like it.) 
    Okay.  SPOILER time.
    She-Ra is primarily the story of two young women--Adora and Catra--best friends that were raised as soldiers in the evil military organization known as the Horde.  The Horde presence on the magical planet of Etheria was dedicated to destroying the princess of Etheria, each of whom wield different magical powers.  Life in the Horde is all Catra and Adora knew, and because they grew up there, they didn't know it was evil.  They thought they were on the side of right and good.  Without any other frame of reference, they just believed what they were taught.
    In the pilot, Adora finds a magical sword which changes her life forever.  The sword chooses her and imbues her with the ability to transform into the magical superhero She-Ra, whose destiny it is to protect Etheria.  Adora meets Glimmer, princess of Brightmoon, and her friend Bow.  Naturally, Adora believes them to be evil, but then begins to question everything she was ever taught and believes in.  After seeing the horrific devastation of the Horde with her own eyes, Adora decides to trust Bow and Glimmer and leaves the Horde.  Adora is forced to make the difficult decision to leave her lifetime friend, Catra, behind.
    What follows in a rich and powerful journey in which Adora helps lead the rebellion against the Horde, rallies all of the other princess to the cause, while Catra refuses to join her and stays with the Horde.  The two friends become enemies, but what makes the relationship so great is they always seem to share a mutual respect, even when fighting, with each one seeming to hope to change the other's mind and find a way to salvage the friendship.  There are times when Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr come to mind.
    All of the characters are fantastic, each with their own struggles, strengths, rich personalities, and complex motivations.  I'm not going to cover all of them.
    Catra continues to push Adora further away, and at some points Catra seems beyond hope or redemption.  She seems too far gone.  But everything changes as the show enters its endgame and the small Horde presence on Etheria links up with the larger Horde in the rest of the galaxy.  The big bad is Horde Prime, who is essentially the Borg queen, assimilating, mind-controlling all life into his collective, which he, like the Borg queen, believes is the best way to unify the galaxy and bring everlasting peace.  It's at this point that Catra begins to realize her miscalculation.  There is no future with Prime--no life in which she gets to remain an individual.  Prime assimilates and destroys all, and Catra can't be a part of it, but she doesn't know how to get out.
    One of the great highlights of the show is Catra's difficult and complex redemption arc, and her eventual reconciliation with Adora.  Her arc reminded me very much of Prince Zuko's, (the highest praise one can ever give) while still being very different.  One of the defining experiences for Catra's character is that she was assimilated by Prime, and later rescued by Adora.  Overcoming that experience was a brilliantly done trauma arc for Catra, surpassed only by Korra's trauma arc in Legend of Korra.
    Naturally, the princess rebellion triumphs in the end and destroys Prime for good.  (This is a kids' show, after all.)
    The show features two other unique, complex, sympathetic villains.  There's nothing I love more in shows than sympathetic villains.  They're always my favorite characters.  I'm not going to go into any detail here, but the other two, Shadow Weaver and Hordack, have fantastic arcs of their own which feature moral ambiguity, difficult and complex motivations, and hard-earned redemptions of their own.
    The show also has the perfect amount of comedy.  Not overdone.  Comedic moments are mostly subtle and used sparingly, but to great affect.
    It's a great show right there, but the daring, phenomenal LGBT representation is what puts it into the stratosphere for me.
    Firstly, Bow, the male lead in Adora's friend group, has two dads, which are prominently shown together.  This is the first gay relationship to be featured.  Bow introduces his dads, and it practically knocked me over backwards in my seat.  I mean, before this, every single instance of gay representation in a kids' show that I'd ever seen was done exactly like AppleDash--vague, implied, never explicitly stated, and with complete and utter plausible deniability.  AJ and RD are just a clever nod to adults.  We knew what it meant, but kids probably wouldn't notice, and even if they did, parents could just deny it or wave it away.  "No, sweetie, Rainbow didn't mean anything by that chore comment.  They're just friends."  I thought that was pretty cool and bold at the time, but here comes She-Ra, and it's just like, "step aside, jr--lemmie show you how it's done."  BAM!  Meet Bow's dads.  Holy sh*t.  Holy f*cking sh*t snacks.  Bow's dads didn't kiss on the lips, which I was a tad disappointed by, but they did kiss hands and do other very obviously romantic touching.  It was pretty legit.
    Then, later on, without intentionally or obnoxiously drawing unneeded attention to it, they feature two princesses who happen to be wives.  Wives!  Not only that, but these two actually kiss!  On the lips!  I mean, think about that!  Pony wasn't even allowed to state anything categorically, or have any romantic contact between AJ and RD.  She-Ra had two wives kiss!  Daaaamn!
    I must also mention that there's a very androgynous character, who happens to be an literal shapeshifter, and who offers a great deal of representation of trans individuals, or just anyone who doesn't fit into the standard gender boxes.  I still don't know which, if either, biological sex that character was supposed to be.  Being an actual shapeshifter, they made not have been either.  The character definitely had a, shall we say... flamboyant personality.  I absolutely loved him/her/them.
    But by far the best part, and what made the show pure magic for me, was the surprise romance between Catra and Adora.  As the final season unfolds, during Catra's redemption arc, it becomes apparent that there's more there then just friendship.  (There were clues there all along, but only to the keenest of observers.)  Towards the end, Catra is talking to a magical animal friend that she made.  It's, uh... I'd describe it like a spirit guide or something.  It's an ethereal, shape-shifting critter that bonded to Catra.  She can understand it and communicate with it, but no one else can.  It communicates non-verbally, and the audience can't hear it, so the conversation is one-sided.  It's like Wilson in Cast Away, except it's really talking.  So, Catra is talking to it, and she says about Adora, "She doesn't want me.  Not the way I want her."  It was a holy sh*t scene.
    When we realize that she's gay, so much of Catra's life comes into focus and makes more sense.  She was always troubled--she suffered from an inferiority complex, anger issues, and severe abandonment issues.  She developed a tough exterior that she wore like armor, and pushed everyone away from her as a defense mechanism against pain and loss.  But her orientation was the final missing piece.  It became obvious that she was undoubtedly ashamed of her feelings and couldn't accept herself.  Etheria is obviously completely fine with  homosexuality, but the Horde was almost certainly not, so Catra grew up feeling the need to hide herself.  Adora was also gay, but didn't suffer the same way, partly because she was more well-adjusted and optimistic, but likely more so because her feelings didn't really seem to develop and awaken until later in life.  Catra was in love with Adora for her entire life, but couldn't be honest about it.  She was a tortured soul.  She rejected herself, and then began to reject everyone.  This fueled every self-destructive decision that she made.
    Catra's redemption, her growth as a person, and her deepening connection to Adora in the final season was brilliant and beautiful.  She-Ra is a story about friendship and love, but most of all the power and importance of redemption and forgiveness for those who seek it.
    One of my favorite scenes, which, in my opinion, is one of the most powerful and probably overlooked scenes, was in the final season when Catra and Adora were friends again, and they returned to the Fright Zone, the Horde's base on Etheria where they were raised and trained.  This time, they were against the Horde.  It was the first time they were back there together since the pilot.  Adora says, "It's weird being back here.  So many memories..." Catra then says, "Yeah, and most of them bad."  She then shifts her gaze slightly to look at Adora, who's standing in front of her.  Catra's hard and stern expression softens.  She looks sad and longingly at Adora.  There's an unspoken line that's perhaps the most powerful in the show.  So, Adora says, "So many memories...", to which Catra responds, "Yeah, and most of them bad."  The line she thinks but doesn't say is, "Except the ones of you."
    Before continuing, I just have to gush about Catra for a minute.  Did I mention she's actually an anthro cat girl?  Yeah, anthro animal people are a thing on Etheria.  Catra's not only far and away my favorite character on the show, she's one of my favorite fictional characters of all time, period.  I relate to her and identify with her.  She's so cool.  She's strong, fierce, badass, and devastatingly gorgeous.  She's got so much sass and attitude.  She can be terrifying to her enemies, but she can also be achingly adorable when she wants to be.  Everything about her is sexy--the way she talks, the way her sultry, husky voice tends to crack, the way it cracks into an adorable squeak when she screams, the way she moves, the way she occasionally runs on all fours, the way she crouches on all fours and leaps like a cat, the way she fights with such agility like a cat, the way she scratches with her claws, the seductive and sensual way she often behaves around others.  OMFG.  It's ridiculous.  Everything she says and does just exudes sex appeal.  (And yet it still manages to be a perfectly tasteful kids' show!)  I love Catra to pieces.  I'm kind of obsessed with her at the moment.  (You could probably guess that from how this blog is more about her than any other.)
    So anyway, in the series finale, at the 11th hour, when all hope seems lost and Catra thinks she's going to lose Adora, in the culmination of her redemption arc, Catra finally professes her true feelings.  To her utter astonishment, Adora reciprocates.  The two then share a passionate kiss.  And lemmie tell ya, then don't mess around.  It's not just some quick peck in the background of the scene or something.  It's every bit as good as Ariel and Eric, Al and Jas, or Belle and the Beast (once he transformed back into the prince, that is).  It was totally legit.  Honestly, it was one of the greatest moments of my life (which is meant to be both a glowing compliment of the scene, but also a sad comment on what a pitiful, lonely life I've had.  )
    Catra and Adora's romance was a game changer, and their kiss was the most bold and daring thing I've ever seen in a kid's show.  I am given to understand that there are other cartoons that feature some bold LGBT representation, but all of the ones I've seen before this just left it implied while being careful to maintain plausible deniability.  She-Ra stepped up and changed the rules like nothing before.  Of the shows I've seen, She-Ra takes home the gold, silver, and bronze of LGBT representation.  No one else is even on the podium.  She-Ra shows us what's possible.  It's beautiful, and it gives me a shred of hope, which is something that's in extremely short supply these days.
    There are fans and critics that complain about an over-representation of homosexuality in TV and movies.  And I'm not just talking about anti-gay people.  I'm talking about people who are fine with gays, but who feel like it's often awkwardly pushed into stories, "shoe-horned" in, and shoved in our faces and down our throats.  There's even a popular youtuber whom I like, listen to, and often agree with when it comes to media reviews, but who feels that movies and TV today are too often used as a political vehicles, and devolve into nothing but principled, annoying lectures.  I take his point.  I get it.  I really do.  I have a feeling he'd hate She-Ra (which admittedly brings me joy for some reason  ).
    Two things--first, She-Ra doesn't feel for a second like it's forced, unnatural, or "shoe-horning" in the same-sex relationships.  Are there more gay relationships in the show than straight?  Yeah.  Absolutely.  But it feels natural, story relevant, and not contrived at all.
    Secondly, and more importantly, the reason why we need strong LGBT representation is quite simple--because we have to counter the strong hatred.  We've made a lot of progress, but not nearly enough.  The fight is far from over, and there's still a lot more hate in the world than I previously thought.  Now more than ever, as we teeter on the precipice, in danger of backsliding so far, we have to continue fighting for acceptance and tolerance.  I, for one, am perfectly fine with an over-correction, an slightly higher-than-statistically-likely representation.  Frankly, I was overjoyed when I saw the Catradora kiss.  Their kiss was a courageous repudiation of everything that is ugly in the world--all of the hatred, bigotry, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness, and that is why She-Ra is a beautiful, precious, and necessary work of art.
     
    Final thoughs--it's a pretty good show.
     
  22. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  When people mispronounce Kratos's name.  Y'know, from God of War.  They get lazy and slur it, turning the t into a soft d, and the s into a z.  "Kray-doze".  "Kraydoze".  Drives me friggin nuts.  You have to annunciate a hard t and distinct s.  "Kray-tose".  Say "kray", then pretend you're going to say the word "toast", but leave the last t off.  Kray-toas.  Not Kray-doze.  Not Crate-O's.  Kray-toas.  Toas.  Not Doze, not O's.  TOAS.  Kratos is the badest badass to ever exist.  It weakens his name when you slur it like that.  No more Kraydoze.  KRATOS, dammit.
    I'll be watching you.  Don't screw it up again...
  23. Justin_Case001
    hey yknow what really grinds my gear when people dont use any punctuation marks whatsoever like wtf are you even kidding me like am i the only person on the face of the planet who has heard of punctuation marks you would not believe how many posts i see on the internet that have absolutely no punctuation marks and the entire paragraph will be one giant run on sentence it makes it so hard to read and figure out their intention its so ridiculous like i am the only person in the world who passed english class or something not to mention the lack of correct capitalization like how they never capitalize i and then theres the fact that they will Randomly capitalize some word in the Middle of a sentence for like no reason Whatsoever and then it makes it even more confusing because You cant tell where they intended one sentence to end and the next One to begin i just cant even describe how much this annoys me i usually feel like the only person on earth who knows how to type coherent sentences and also people cant spell anything korektly or use proper gramir people are so stoopid i hate it
  24. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Clickbaity youtube videos that always say, "How to do this really hard thing in X minutes!"  You know what I'm talking about--it'll be like, "How to build your own gaming PC in 30 mintues!"  "How to configure your own open-source wi-fi router in 15 minutes!"  "How to make this ultra-realistic 3D model in Blender in 25 minutes!"  Yeah, most of these sorts of videos that I see are tech related cuz that's what I do.  But it could also be, like, um... "How to rebuild your carburetor in 20 minutes!", or "How to build this tool shed in 45 minutes!", or "How to build and launch the James Webb Space Telescope in 10 minutes!"
    The thumbnail is always some grinning, charismatic joker pointing to their totally awesome thing that they built, and the video is always framed as "I built this in X minutes, so you can, too!"  But the part they leave out is "How to do this really difficult thing in 5 minutes... plus the requisite hundreds or thousands of hours of learning and practice that it takes to get good enough and knowledgeable enough to do it that quickly!!"  ... RIGHT?!
    I mean, they always make it look like someone starting at absolute ground zero can do it that quickly, but that's a joke.  Sure, that totally realistic Blender model absolutely can be made in 30 minutes... once you've spent hundreds or thousands of hours mastering Blender, that is.  But I guess that doesn't get the clicks.  Sometimes I actually need a manageable, approachable entry point, and a realistic picture of how long and difficult the road ahead will be.  The real video title should be, "I made this thing in Blender in 10 MINUTES, and you can, too, after years of practice, learning, failure, failing down and getting back up, trying and trying again, and tearing your hair out!"
    Like, just... y'know, be honest and say that a lot of skill and practice is needed before you can do this thing in 5 minutes.  Don't make it sound like just anybody can do it right now.  Y'know?
  25. Justin_Case001

    Capital Punishment

    By Justin_Case001,


    .
    When it comes to the subject of capital punishment, it seems a ubiquitous requirement of anyone on the political left to be against it.  Most liberals/democrats/leftists are against the death penalty, and always have been, as far as I am aware.  While I have absolutely no loyalty to any party, camp, tribe, or movement, and typically reject all political labels these days, it's also a fact that I typically fall left of center on most social issues.  However, I am actually for the death penalty, at least at the moment.  I feel as though I am admitting to something monstrous by saying this, but allow me to explain.  Before I can do that, however, we need to get philosophical.
    In my previous entry, Shallow, I posited that there's no such thing as free will as we tend to think of it.  If you're not acquainted with this idea, I suggest reading at least the first couple of paragraphs of that entry, as well as listening to the short audio clip I embedded there.  The TL;DR is that we don't create ourselves in any deep sense, we're not responsible for our genes nor brain chemistry, we don't author our thoughts, and there's not a cell in your body that you brought into being.  Because of this, our thoughts, and by extension our actions, can be viewed as essentially just another force of nature that no one is the ultimate author or agent of.  This doesn't erase responsibility or accountability--not by any means.  But what this perspective does do is close the door for hatred and open the door for compassion.  If you truly understand this no-free-will idea, then it becomes clear that hating people simply for being evil makes no sense.  I'm not saying it's easy to get on board with this idea, but it is a logical position nonetheless.  If you accept the fact that free will doesn't exist, then the idea of revenge, vengeance, and retribution go out the window.  We would still need to protect ourselves from dangerous people, but we should also want to help them if we could, and not punish them simply because they "deserve it", and for no other reason.  The following audio clip is an excerpt from a podcast with Sam Harris and Robert Sapolsky.  Listen to it to gain a better understanding of this idea:
    So, the point is that in a more evolved, more ethical society, we should be moving away from a retributive justice system, and towards a restorative one.
    As a person with a passionate, often fiery sense of justice, a person disgusted and infuriated by evil, it is extremely difficult for me to fully get on board emotionally with the ideas I've just laid out above.  My instinctual, gut reaction is to want to punish evil people as brutally as possible.  My default state is more of a medieval justice system; and eye for an eye, so to speak.  If someone I loved was murdered, admittedly I would be strongly inclined to go on some sort of a Liam Neeson Taken-esque man-hunt, a Captain Ahab quest, a Kratosian rampage to find my loved one's murderer and kill them with my bare hands.  I would want bloody revenge.  But the logical, rational part of my brain realizes the folly of such a reaction.  That's why I'm glad that I'm not in charge of making our justice laws, and happy to leave that task to wiser people.  Vengeance my emotional response, but on the record, in my dispassionate moments, I do not condone revenge for it's own sake, and I support a restorative justice system.
    When I feel the most inclined towards hatred and revenge, I think back to one of my favorite Star Trek Voyager episodes, Repentance.  A masterpiece of an episode, it perfectly demonstrated how one could come to feel completely differently about a quintessentially evil monster.  I highly recommend watching this episode if you have access to it somewhere, such as a streaming service.  It requires absolutely no previous experience with Star Trek, nor context with Voyager whatsoever to appreciate it.  The basic plot (spoiler alert) is that an evil mass murderer is cured of his psychopathy by an advanced medical procedure, and he subsequently comes to view his previous self as a monster, and he is just as disgusted by his past actions as we the audience are.  By the end of the episode, it will have any capital punishment supporter questioning their position.
    So... what the hell am I talking about, then?  I opened by saying that I do support the death penalty... and then I spent the next several paragraphs essentially repudiating it, so... did you miss something?  Did I miss something.  No.  Now I'll bring this together and it will make sense.
    I would be against the death penalty, save for one important thing--I simply cannot look at inmates serving life sentences without feeling extreme sorrow and anguish for the innocent people of the world who, by dint of bad luck, are suffering unimaginably.  It is an undeniable fact that prison inmates in the United States, even those serving life sentences in maximum security facilities, have it far better than many of the unluckiest people on Earth, people who desperately need our help.  Prison inmates have a bed, a roof over their heads, a proper amount of food and clean water, and access to basic medical care.  There are millions of people on Earth at this moment who would consider their prayers answered if they could trade places with such a prisoner.  There are so many people in impoverished countries who live in squalor, who are starving to death, are forced to drink filthy water, and are dying of diseases, many of which could be easily treated or cured if they lived in developed countries.  It seems intolerable to me to provide basic food, water, shelter, and medical care to murderers and rapists when so many innocent people suffer.  How can I watch these commercials full of emaciated children suffering horribly and not feel incredibly distressed knowing that there are criminals receiving a far better standard of living?  It just feels so wrong to me.  I would rather that we help innocent people who are suffering, regardless of which country they're in, before helping violent criminals.  If we can put murderers and rapists to death and redirect that money and resources to innocent people who need it more, and who are more deserving, then that seems like a just and good choice to me.
    However, I realize that there is one gaping, glaring hole in my logic--I have heard the statistic that it's more expensive to execute a criminal then to keep them in prison for life.  That's probably true, but that is a fact that I simply cannot wrap my head around.  It seems so ridiculous, so counter-intuitive, and so insane that...  that... I just don't even know what to say.  It's f*ckin' nuts.  You can't make this stuff up.  No matter what they come up with in science fiction movies, real life will always be crazier.  Providing someone with food, medical care, and basic room and board for life is cheaper than just ending them?  Like.... what?!  What the f*ck??!  But alas, I'm sure that's true, and if it is, then that alone punches a hole through my idea like a f*ckin railgun.
    It's not just the execution cost, either.  As always, the complications of real world economics make everything so much harder than it should be.  I realize that simply eliminating a cost in one place doesn't mean you can just redirect that money to some other, more deserving place.  Doesn't work like that.  Money can't just flow to and fro to whoever needs it most.  Money is earmarked for certain things, and money saved by one company or department or body cannot simply be scooped up and put towards something more preferable.  Perhaps someday, if we come up with a better system.  But for now, I know it doesn't work like that.
    For those two reasons, I suppose the death penalty isn't a good idea after all.  However, on an emotional level, I just can't help from feeling raw about it.  It seems so unfair and out of whack that if a starving person from an impoverished village could come to the U.S. and commit a homicide and get incarcerated, they'd have a better life than where they came from.  Where's the justice in that?  I realize that I'm also completely disregarding the harshness of prison life with respect to the violence from other inmates and such.  I dunno--still seems like an upgrade from the starving, disease ridden villages.
    It's also important to note that my opinions about all of this would change if we truly understood "evil" at the level of the brain, and could intervene and help violent people, essentially "curing" them of their violent impulses.  Imagine if we invented a pill or a shot that could cure psychopathy.  If we could treat psychopathy as we would treat diabetes, then we would no longer look at violent people as "evil", but merely unlucky to be born with that brain chemistry.  Look at it this way--we would never consider withholding insulin from a diabetic as some sort of perverse punishment for having diabetes.  Likewise, as Sam said, if we could cure psychopathy, then it would be monstrous to deny that cure to a psychopath as some sort of retribution.  On that day, on the day that society looks like Star Trek Voyager's Repentance, then I would definitely be against capital punishment.  Until that day... I guess I remain agnostic.  Ultimately, I just wish that there was a better, more global, more cosmopolitan way of prioritizing money and resources, and helping those who need it most, first.
     
    *2024 Update*
    I wanted to pop in and briefly revisit this post.  I wanted to add some updated caveats that I've recently learned.  I ought to do a thorough revisiting of this topic, but honestly, I just don't want to spend the time, and who the f*ck's even gonna read it, anyway?  So, I'm just going to add a view sentences and call it good enough.  I think most of what I wrote still reflects my current views (I'm not even going re-read the entire thing right now), but I just wanted to add a little additional information.
    After talking with a friend who is quite informed on this subject, it has came to my attention that the death penalty has been misused and misapplied many times, which I'm ashamed to say I never really thought about.  In fact, it's apparently an absolute sh*tshow of shocking misapplication and injustice.  There have, I am given to understand, been many, many cases throughout the decades of the death penalty being carried out when it shouldn't have been--for example, people put to death who were later found out to be innocent, or people who were put to death for being accomplices to murder, when in reality they were actually just in the wrong place at the wrong time and didn't even realize that a murder was occurring--that sort of thing.  This being the case, I would have to say that I am now (begrudgingly) against the death penalty entirely, though it still doesn't sit well with me that we feed, clothe, house, and provide medical care to some of the most evil monsters to ever walk the Earth while we do virtually nothing for good, innocent people who, often by no fault of their own, find themselves homeless and starving.  It ain't right, I say.  But alas, the death penalty seems to be completely indefensible given our wildly imperfect justice system.  I could and should write more, but I don wanna.  :/
     
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