Monday, November 24, 2008

Guns N Roses Fans Suck

Listening to the new "GnR".

I'm fine with Axl making music. He can do as he pleases. The stupid part comes about when I encounter people who speak of the last decade of GnR like it's the same band.

This is a huge problem in society, much larger than Axl's side-band. Humans make companies, but in most cases, the humans that make a company one thing don't stick around, or other humans come in and make it something else. The company name is all that stays, and people will, effectively, mindlessly endorse said company even though whatever person responsible for creating their affection for it is long gone.

An Example:
Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Final Fantasy, left Squaresoft. Squaresoft still makes Final Fantasy games and Sakaguchi still makes games like Final Fantasy. Sakaguchi's games are arguably as good, only they aren't badged "Final Fantasy" so they sell worse.

I don't entirely expect people to do development team research on their games, but don't fucking ever try to tell me that Guns N Roses is a band that does not involve at least two of the original members.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Burning Man Sucks

Just because you and I are both creative does not mean I will like art cars. I don't feel like being stoned in the desert for a week with a bunch of naked hippies and--even better--part-time hippies. If I was going to do drugs in the desert I'd do them alone, upping the likelihood I'd come across a talking Coyote.

Your Conversational Idioms Suck

"Seven minute silence"

Yeah, um no. There's no such thing. What you have run into is the fact that you and the people around you are both boring and uninterested in each other enough to have run out of things to talk about in just shy of half of a quarter of an hour. Good job.

"No such thing as absolutes."
"That's an absolute!"

Yes. Thank you both. How about this assholes: There's no such thing as absolutes except for a few, this being one of them, go fuck yourselves knowitalls.

All Obama Impersonations Suck

Everyone I've seen try has completely blown it. The SNL guy neither looks nor sounds like him. Last time I saw him on I was far more impressed with the Tom Brokaw impression. Gawker had some dude who wants to get the job on SNL but other than being black, he was no better.

My feeling (that I'm willing to share with all you aspring Obama impersonators) is that to get him to be funny you have to think of things that are funny and then have Obama do them. Like maybe he's always dancing like he did on Ellen. I'd watch that. I am right now, in my mind!

Saturday Night Live Sucks

I know we all started watching again after the "Lazy Sunday" video, and again when Tina Fey dressed up like Sarah Palin, but the show is godawful.

Neither the McCain guy nor the Obama guy is any fun to watch, and even when Fey teamed up with Will Ferrell it was a one trick pony, only getting laughs cos the two are famous legitimately now. The remainder of the show that isn't ads is two people standing and awkwardly reading cue cards.

Jimmy Fallon Sucks

Jimmy Fallon's success resides in various network and movie excecs feeling two things to be true:

1. That Saturday Night Live is relevant, hip, funny, or any combination of the three.
2. That Jimmy Fallon was funny on it.

Barring this idea, I have no explanation for him landing movie roles and certainly not for his appointment to the Late Night desk.

Lara (Laura? Lyra?) Croft Sucks

Not because of her consistently terrible character design of muddled green and brown paired with orange skin and eyes set so wide as to be an orca, each generation both getting slightly better and less insipidly proportioned, yet still paying homage the original disaster that the character is still unsettling to look at, not for that.

For her voice.

It's too "British".

Yes, yes, thank you, I realize she's supposed to be some heiress raised all nicely, thank you for trying to poke that hole in my argument. That's not it. It's that no one, British heiress, Q of E or girl from Staines, sounds like that. Every time I hear the character speak her voice sounds decades too old for her poorly designed body and it blows the whole poorly slapped together image.

Tomb Raider was, is and always will be a mediocre game series, cobbled together using the concept of what men like without any actual thought, giving us inpossibly huge and unshapely breasts, a manly run and your mom's voice. It's a computer's solution: vairables fed in ("giant tis" "big eyes" "kind of tan" "short shorts") and the uncomfortable result returned with digital indifference. She'd probably smell like fresh bread.

Your Distaste for Arial Sucks

It's that bad huh? It's ruining your life the way that gay marriage is? Messing up your program harder than an ATI graphics card? It's the Xbox to your PS3.

Give up.

It's not a shitty typeface.

It's not Helvetica. Waaah. Sorry that your one right answer, the one you always go to when you are incapable of, I dunno, desinging, thinking, whatever, so that is gone when you boot up your friend's PC. Epicly tragic. Thank you for blogging about it. Thank you for the snarky tests, the comparison websites and the offhand comments about the design failures of the tail of the lowercase "a". Thank you for this idea that Helvetica is god therefore anything close is shit. Anything except Univers, cos that is also god.

Do they hand out a list of the fonts that you should, will and have to love for life when you take a graphic design class? Is there a day where they tell you to hate on Comic Sans and Arial? Special seminars where you talk about when you had to slum it cos you were on a PC?

In art school the biggest insult was to call something "craft" versus "art". Defaulting to Helvetica is craft.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

The Lack of Politics News Sucks

I'm used to checking out wonkette and fivthirtyeight every day, but now, with the next president elected the whole network's gone quiet.

What am I supposed to chew up two hours of every day with now? Actual reports of happenings in the world? Booooring!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Kanye West Sucks

"I got this idea where I rap over another song, and then lets make the video look just like that other video, yeah!"

Your Dessert Selection Sucks

Creme Brulee
Tiramisu
Cheesecake
Chocolate Mousse
Sorbet
Apple Pie/Tart/Fancy word.

That's the list you'll be handed at 97% of all restaurants when you ask for a dessert menu.

I'll give you that desert is a tricky business, but the lack of imagination at even very good restaurants is astounding. Maybe that's all people order anyway, but to be perfectly frank, if your restaurant is functioning solely on market conditions you should just franchise a Cheesecake Factory cos people line up around the block.

I'm not asking for a revolution here, just a few items that aren't dairy-based and a non-apple fruit option. Apple pie is the shittiest pie. Apples taste like almost nothing. It's cinnamon pie. Apple tart just means less of everything presented prettier but tasting the same. Just change the goddamn fruit in it and I'll be perfectly happy with the tower of unoriginality that you call a desert menu.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Wanted, the comic, Sucks

This comic is angry, racist, misogynistic and sloppily written.

I'm gonna write a lot about how much I hate it, but really, all you need to know is the above sentence and that the movie is incomparably better.

On the second page the narrator, doing his very best Fight Club monologue, points out verbally that his boss is an African-American. Later someone else veers off their conversational road to again establish that Wesley's boss is indeed African-American. His boss' ethnicity must hinge around a plot point with the hammering they're giving it. Why else bring it up? That boss has to have something to do with this story.

She actually doesn't. The boss is verbally observed to be black twice and a lesbian once and is promptly out of the story. I don't even know if she is one of the myriad of people he shoots in his arbitrary killing spree that passes as his "training".

You see Wesley is the son of the greatest assassin evar and now he's being trained by some "Super Villains". The "Super Villains" run this secret society called "The Fraternity" which narrowly beat out "The Corporation" in a vote on "sweet names for evil organizations" among wet men. There are no "Super Heroes" cos all the bad guys teamed up in 1986 and killed them. For reasons that escape me The Fraternity then pulled an Agent Smith and reformatted the whole place (human brains and all) so that only they had any memory of it and run around the new world like a bunch of adolescent Neos killing and raping to their heart's content.

Yeah, raping. Supervillains and specifically the protagonist are super into rape. It's what Wesley does for fun now. And why not? After all, if I were in his shoes and my societal chains broke off I'd run right out and brutally assault everyone and everything. Just get my rape right the fuck on man! I mean, I get it. He's a Super Villian. He's a bad person. Bad people rape. Bad people kill. He's also the protagonist of this obscenely masturbatory fantasy of Mark Millar's. He's celebrated on every page. He's your super hero Tyler Durden, also: rapist.

I imagine that Mark Millar was drowning in the gallons of his own semen flooding his parents' basement when he looked up and asked God to save him. That must have been when the vision hit him: the ability to kill indiscriminately, to be taught how to have sex, to be able to rape anyone and get away scott free. This was the dream. This is what the unsexed 14 year old who'd let the past two decades slide right the fuck by saw as a savior: sex training and easy revenge. Also: rape.

It's far more likely however, that Mark Millar is a mediocre writer who had an interesting idea and little capability to carry it out. The question of what a society of outlaws does when no one can stop them is excellent, exploring that with a normal guy: also excellent. Millar never digs in, never gives it more than a passing thought. Everyone goes around killing and raping. That's the extent of it. Rape used as the "edgy" spice. The whole book spends so much time trying to be badass in every direction it's a dish made with every ingredient in the kitchen. Celery Salt, Cumin, Nutmeg, Rosemary, Brown Sugar, stir it all up! Yum! Piles upon piles of ideas of how to show you "Badass". Later Wesley cries about his bad deeds, but whatever cos he goes in killing on the next page (oh, sorry, now he's killing BAD guys...) then he shoots his dad at the end, says "Bitch" arbitrarily a few more times and it's over.

I'm conflicted: I think it's a talentless screed--that much is clear by now--but I love the movie. The movie of course, took the "Super assassin dad dies, hot lady finds son, trains him" part and dropped the juvenile sex talk, rape and everything else. This complete pile of shit produced a very fun movie. I suppose we should call it fertilizer, the comic.

But hey, I like to be the bigger man sometimes, so here are some small ideas that would make "Wanted" suck less:

- The Shit Man, instead of being "the collected feces of the 666 most evil people" why isn't he the death shits of those people. Hitler shoots himself, ass relaxes, shit falls out. Shit Man should be that shit specifically, not just arbitrary bad guy shits. Also, do evil people shit really tiny, cos 666 human shits would be fucking enormous. Also also, have you seen that Kevin Smith movie about God? Just curious...

- Knock off Fox's ebonics. It reads like Americans doing British accents.

- Show the Killer doing a kill that is more difficult than just shooting at a guy. Other than a few frames where he's posing like Chow Yun Fat, Wesley never comes off as any more skilled than a magically invincible psychopath.

- Knock it off with the "the authorities leave us alone cos of our pins and license plates" nonsense. Don't go there, don't explain it. The Super Villains can reprogram minds. Done. Don't show me cops going "oh shit sorry sir, I didn't see your pin" cos now I start to think, "How soon after a cop gets hired do they tell him to let the people with the pins do what they want?" and then, "Is anyone counterfeiting pins? Cos if I was a cop (and thus knew about the secret pins) I'd sure a shit make a few for myself and friends." Imagining cops kow-towing to these pins forces me to punch all kinds of holes in the reality of the world. Regular people may not be as powerful as the super villains, but it's rather unlikely that people would just sit around and take it up the ass for two decades. So either the people get their minds consistently erased or the Super Villians aren't causing all that much trouble, neither of which seems to be the case in the book, hence my issue with it all.

- That part in the beginning where Wesley's dad is about to fuck two dudes and is all "I'm not gay, I've fucked tons of women." Is written out so specifically I'm creeped out. I don't see a super killer who's banged 5,000 women as someone who'd feel the need to explain himself (even if he is insecure enough to keep track), extra especially in a world without consequence.

- As a subset to the above note, and a general writing suggestion: imagine every line you write being spoken aloud in a real world situation. If it sounds like your character is explaining a bit much, your character is explaining a bit much.

- If you're going to constantly comment on how your girlfriend character is fat, you might want to have her illustrated as such. Katsuhiro Otomo said he didn't draw attractive girls because that was too easy. But who's he?

- All I see in that two page spread of Wesley shooting his dad is cock and eyes rolling back. What word did you hold in your mind when you drew that? Roofiedudesex?

- The guy who's dick is a super villian: clever. How's that working out for you?

- Dear powers copy guy, was Wesley there with a stopwatch when you sucked the powers from the other guy? Cos man, he knew down to the SECOND when you were gonna lose them. Super assassin AND super time teller! Also, who were you? Was I supposed to care about you when you barged into the story sometime in book five, cos I was all WTF and like, maybe I missed the part earlier where anyone said anything about you at all.

- Okay, those last few weren't exactly suggestions.

- Plot based killing. People come into and out of this story so ham-handedly it's like someone opening a door for you while they say "you can't see me! you can't see me!" I suppose in a book whose central context is a world without consequence it is fitting that characters would appear lacking in all motivation.

that makes me think, what if this book is really some amazing art thing I only partially comprehend? The whole no consequences thing being more about the writing than about the actual book? An epic brilliance that will have to be dug through by scholars before I can truly see it clearly. Is this another "Night of the Carrots"?

I stand in awe.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Sarah Palin Sucks I.V

McCain woke from his nightmare where he was a creepy republican proxy and delivered a very nice concession speech. To be perfectly frank, I'd have been impressed with Obama had he done so as well if the reverse had happened, though admittedly, he's been a bit better about not lowering standards,

ANYWAY,

It looked to me like Sarah Palin was crying.

This is sucks 1.5 because IF she was, then I have another if/then statement:

IF she was crying because she'd realized using her children as cheap political props made her a terrible human being who not only didn't win the election but gave the children some severly difficult memories to chew on THEN I forgive her and she only gets one and a half "sucks's" on my bastion of standards.

IF she was crying for any other reason, well, whatever. Barring my friend's wish for her to do Playboy, I don't see much more interesting coming from her.

24 Season 7 Will Sucks

I saw a piece of the trailer for this "Jack Bauer in Africa" business in a bar. I was told it would take place in Washington D.C. instead of Los Angeles.

I was hopeful.

I made a mental note to watch the trailer with sound on.

Utter blah. Other than putting an orange filter over all the Africa footage, what is new? It's all the same parodies of real humans, so one sided they might as well be the stars of a Joel Schumacher courtroom drama. Easy answers are on the menu.

Things that will happen in this season:
- Jack tortures people
- People tortures Jack
- 3rd party gets tortured and instead of either a) dying, or b) getting their ass to a hospital they will c) get right back to the work "only they can do" and create filler for the better half of the season.
- CTU gets infiltrated
- 3 to 1 it's by someone who has a recently kidnapped relative and a cockamamie reason for not calling the cops about it.
- Jack's boss hates Jack and will fuck him over to add another 15-20 minutes to each and every goddamn episode
- A bunch of government dudes will be complete horrible shitholes for almost no reason other than like one of them has a brother in law who's half Chinese or something.
- Jack Bauer will say "You're gonna have to trust me" and you know what? He'll be right, because Jack Bauer is never ever wrong on 24, ever. He's like Donald Rumsfeld's idea of Colon Powell and George Patton's lovechild: indescribably perfect.
- Jack's Ninja father shows up again and does more Ninja like crap.
- Things that kill many normal people (poison gas, bombs, bullets, torture...) make Jack cough, grimace and possibly sputter for 2-5 seconds before he gets up and does something heroic or we break for commercial.
- They'll lose Jack, the bad guys or more likely both, on their satelite feeds.
- Jack will rack up a 40 plus bodycount over the "day" and the rest of the world will not notice all the random shootings in North Hollywood (sorry, "D.C.") parking lots.

and finally,
- No one will fire any of the incomptent turds that comprise the "white house staff" that has consitently blown it for 6 seasons in a row. There's been four presidents, right? Five if you count whoever pre-Palmer was. I don't want to see the same people snarking on each other while some genuine crisis is only averted beacause superhuman Jack Bauer makes up for the incompetence of an entire government.

Go Jack,

I'll be rooting for you, at least until I start skipping to the "Next week on 24" part way at the end like I did for last season.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Maddox Sucks

(Updated: 11-08-05)
(Updated: 02-10-06)
(Updated: 05-06-06)
(Updated: 07-27-06)
(Updated: 11-13-06)
(Updated: 03-05-07)
(Updated: 04-01-07)
(Updated: 04-30-07)
(Updated: 07-16-07)
(Updated: 10-29-07)
(Updated: 04-01-08)
(Updated: 05-31-08)
(Updated: 12-25-08)

I love every one of those updates, even all three in 2008.

I bought the book. The book is godawful.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Bape Sucks

I'm actually rather upset about this. Bape is a company that makes more expensive versions of popular streetwear.

They make a version if the Nike Air Force 1, the Adidas Superstar, the Puma clyde and I think they do Nike Dunks and Max's now too.

The Bape knockoff of the AF1 is a better shape than the actual shoe in my opinion. Slightly sleeker without getting into the "duck foot" territory the Nike Dunk occupies. It's a very nice shoe and I have exactly 1 pair.

There are two problems here:
1. The shoes sell for $150 but are poorly constructed out of cheap leather and materials. The cutting and stitching is all ragged and shoddy.

2. They're all patent leather clown shoes now.

Seriously. Ultra colorful patent leather. So your shoes are going to look like hell after exactly 1 wear.

Awesome.

All This Sarah Palin Sucks Business Sucks

Okay, I don't like Sarah Palin, I don't think she'd be good for this country, but to see/read/hear people just DYING to see her eat complete shit publicly is annoying.

Dear Democrats, Obama supporters, people who still care about Michael Moore and general right wing haters,

What are you, A bunch of welfare queens who want to win the lottery?

Winning a battle because the opposition slips on a banana peel is bullshit.

Yeah, she ain't special. Yeah, she's not qualified for president. Let's get over that and win this properly instead of waiting for her to sink the ship like some misplaced Anakin Skywalker.