MY COLUMN IS FIGHT!

VTECH JUST KICKED IN YO! (Originally Posted On 4/19/07)

2007-09-25T22:18:00.000-07:00

I was going to write something funny this week. Of course, procrastinator that I am, I waited until the day of the deadline to sit down and write anything at all.

Unfortunately, by today, I wasn't in a humorous mood. Seeing the headline on this newspaper, "Massacre At Virginia Tech," in bold black lettering tends to bring out the cynic in me.

But I'm not here to chide the newspaper on its front-page sensationalism.

Let's face it, dear readers: we, as Americans, love instant gratification. Anything less than our way, right away, seems pretty inconvenient. We like easy answers; we like to not think a lot. We like obvious, comprehensible explanations that make sense to us without us needing it repeated or expounded on in further detail.

When occasions like this arise, examples of violence among "young" people, the same easy answers always appear: violent video games, heavy metal and the like.

Honestly, I'm waiting for it. I haven't watched the news in the last few hours (it's more or less just the same stuff being looped over and over), so there's a big chance that Jack Thompson, Sen. Joe Lieberman and the rest of the so-called "whistle-blowers" are already setting up camps outside CNN (or Fox News, horror of horrors), getting set to do what they do best - scare people foolish enough to actually believe their paranoia-based arguments.

I've seen so many good points defeated because the other side continually used fear tactics, expounding on what could happen rather than what actually was happening. Of course, the public still doesn't know the complete story. But that won't stop Thompson and his cronies from speculating. Speculating very, very loudly.

Their biggest argument is that violent video games and heavy metal cause children and young adults to commit atrocities. But there is a simple refutation for this: the kids were messed up before they even got their hands around a controller or a CD player. Anyone who plays Grand Theft Auto or listens to Cannibal Corpse and actually thinks anything involved is acceptable behavior already has something wrong with them.

So don't lose your heads, people. In these desperate times, when it seems like there's a new crisis every single day, it's so easy to fall out of control and give into fear itself: fear of failing a class, fear of losing someone you love. There's always a logical, reasonable way out: if you keep cool and assess a situation, an answer can be found.

And if some censor-happy, moral majority member decides to bring up how many people listen to heavy metal and play video games then kill others, shut 'em up with just one question:

How many folks play video games and listen to heavy metal and don't kill people?

Stupid People, Your Days Are Numbered (Originally Posted 4/12/07)

2007-09-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, dear readers: the world is full of tomfoolery: clearly able people parking in handicapped spaces (or better yet, using a sticker they got two years ago), folks stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to have a little chat with their friends without a thought to people who actually have to get somewhere and let's not forget all the unknowing jerks at the Russell House that crowd around the food counters and force everyone else to wade through them like tall, noisy, irritating grass.

It is these and other issues that keep me and my roommate up into the wee hours of the morning as we try to devise solutions, or at least temporary fixes, to said issues. It was just a few days ago, in fact, when we quite literally hit on the answer. We call it the One Free Hit Principle.

Said principle is this: every single person in the world, from the time they are born, is entitled to one of three consequence-free attacks. How it works is this: one time, anytime, anywhere, you may stop time for a matter of seconds and attack anyone you please with one of the following moves: the Punch of Justice, the Slap of Indignation or the Kick of Dickery.

After the attack has been used, time will resume as normal and the victim, as well as bystanders, will have no recollection of being punched, kicked or slapped. They will, however, still feel the pain of the attack. The purpose is not to injure the victim, but merely inflict discomfort with impunity.

While the attacks are interchangeable, they are appropriate for certain events.

The first attack, Punch of Justice, is meant for situations in which you, the attacker, are clearly in the right and the victim is clearly in the wrong. For example: standing in line at Burger King and getting cut off by Trendy McPopcollar because you moved about a second too slow for him. The world holds its breath as you bash that idiot right across his perfectly tanned face. The world exhales, and suddenly Trendy's got a headache and you've got a smile.

The second attack, the Slap of Indignation, is for times when someone else says something and you just want to walk up to them, whack 'em and scream, "What is wrong with you?!"

An appropriate occasion for this would be just the other day when I heard some guy say, in all seriousness, "You read the newspaper? That is so deep." Honestly, I felt if I thought about that sentence for more than five seconds, I would develop the world's first case of instantaneous schizophrenia.

The last attack, the Kick of Dickery, is really the most satisfying move, reserved for those special occasions when you've become a remote bomb and someone just steps on your detonator: you're walking back to the dorm dejected, you had pop quizzes in every class, your mother called and your dog died, and you found out that your girlfriend/boyfriend of however many years has been cheating on you the entire time. You're about to turn a corner, and you nearly run into someone who gives you this look of "How DARE you be on MY sidewalk. Ugh, the absolute agony of it all!" You know what to do.

The Oncoming Shitstorm (Originally Posted On 04/05/07)

2007-09-25T22:09:00.000-07:00

The article by Kemp which I am referring to can be found here. Even going back and reading it now, the staggering amount of vitriolic stupidity unleashed upon the internet on that page is mind-boggling

+

Good morning, USC. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption, but for the sake of common sense, I thought we could mark this April the 5th by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.

There are, of course, those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones and men with duct tape will soon be on their way. Why?

Because while the delete key may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and, for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.

And the truth is, dear readers, that my beloved campus has lost its mind.

Exhibit A: the article, written by Kathleen Kemp, on the bottom left front page of yesterday's newspaper, in which the arrest of the Alpha Tau Omega President, Russ Shoemaker, and his Sigma Nu buddy was chronicled.

For those of you who don't know, both Sigma Nu and Alpha Tau Omega were founded shortly after the Civil War, by James Frank Hopkins and Otis Allan Glazebrook respect-ively, two men who saw that the true way to bind up the war wounds would be through fellowship and not heavy law enforce-ment.

These two visionaries set high standards of morality and honor for the fraternities, standards which have been blatantly marred by these students' misbehavior. Now, apparently the public has lower expectations for social fraternities than I do because, as one online responder put it, "College kids drinking? Smoking pot? Who'da thunk it?"

However, in my view, if the head of an organization, the one who is supposedly a role model for the rest of the participants, is getting stoned and cracked out, what are we, the general populace, supposed to expect from the rest of them?

Speaking of the general public, that brings me to my other point.

Exhibit B: the online backlash as the brightest and best of the USC Whiners Corps. took to the Daily Gamecock Web site and started flooding the space below the article with accusations of slander, personal attacks and straight-up lying. One particularly ineloquent writer even went so far as to tell Kemp to go to Hell.

Now, as misanthropic as I am, I can appreciate loyalty in just about any form. However, loyalty in the form of flat-out aggressive complaining is past ineffective, it's downright annoying and stupid. One commenter said "no one cares."

If the student body is really so apathetic, why bother descending upon the author with insults - but not one scrap of evidence to the contrary? Adam Ribock, in what I'm sure was supposed to be a serious argument, called the article an "obvious attack on Russ, ATO and Greek Life in general."

I guess he must've missed that Kemp's article was nothing but a reporting of facts. You know, like most news articles tend to be.

Don't get me wrong, I am by no means trying to bash Greek Life. I think it's a great social program where people can more or less do whatever they want with like-minded people.

But the leaders of those programs need to, at the very least, give the illusion of upstanding. Also, they need to send better arguers to defend them online.

+

On a note related with this article, I've never gotten so many death threats in my life after this saw print...which I think is hilarious.

Real World = Suck (Originally Posted 3/30/07)

2007-09-25T22:06:00.001-07:00

As most of my friends know, I'm one of the millions of people worldwide who plays the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) "World of Warcraft". Notice I said "plays" and not "is addicted to."

The players are divided into two sides: the dominating, power-hungry Alliance and the ragtag, rebellious Horde, the latter of which I am proud to be a member.

Last weekend I was reading through the forums on my guild's Web site and came upon a post in which the writer spoke on the careful balance of time between the game world and the real world.

This got me thinking: even though I don't spend anywhere near the majority of my time playing, I do spend a significant chunk of it there. So why do I play? There are many reasons, but one towers above the rest:

Real world, you suck.

In the real world, battles and wars are fought over stuff like religion and moral principles that could just as easily be resolved through peaceful discussion, compromise or simple tolerance.

But no, everyone always has to make sure his or her opinion is the universally "right" one and everyone else who disagrees is wrong. In WoW, such conflicts exist as well, but the futility of such squabbles is abandoned in the face of bigger threats.

And that is what I think this world needs: a catastrophe of epic MMORPG proportions - a demonic invasion, an outbreak of zombies, an indiscriminate, destructive evil force that threatens every human being on an equal scale.

Some would argue such a force already exists, that the dangerous, malcontent mass of worldwide militants the media always refers to as "terrorists" is the black-and-white villain I call for.

But, in reality, terrorists are just like you and me; they just think differently. Every suicide bomber, every insurgent is someone's son or daughter, someone's brother or sister, someone's mother or father. And they're fighting for what they personally believe is right, for what they think will make a better tomorrow.

But demons? Well, anyone well-versed in that field can tell you that demons live to end and conquer life for no other reason than to end and conquer life.

Who would spend time arguing which God is better or who deserves oil when the human race needs to be rescued?

I look forward to the day when people of every creed and race can stand together against some unearthly menace, ready to save the world. Not for natural resources or for their God of choice, but because the right to live is precious to us all.

Bad Songs Part 2: The Reckoning! (Originally Posted On 3/22/07)

2007-09-25T22:03:00.000-07:00

Dear readers, the results are in. But first, here's a recap for those who don't feel like wading through the Daily Gamecock online archives.

The week before spring break, I posed a very simple question to the populace of USC: what song do you really, really hate, and why? I encouraged online posting and even set up a Yahoo mail account for the purpose of collecting this music-provoked vitriol. The response was, to say the least, overwhelming.

The inbox was flooded with dozens of entries, most of them starting with something along the lines of "I only get to pick one?"

My response? Yes, you only get one vote/suggestion. What do you think this is, the 2000 presidential election?

But cheap political shots aside I'll start with some of the more humorous entries.

"The Police's 'Message in a Bottle,'" wrote one entrant. "Maybe it's just because I work in a grocery store and it comes on the radio about every hour, but I feel like punching a customer in the face for each time I hear Sting sing 'sending out an S-O-S!'"

"Anything Nickelback, period," another entrant said, "The song 'Photograph' makes me want to stab myself in the neck with the nearest sharp object."

In third place of all vote-getting was Beyonce's song "Irreplaceable," in which, as one girl said, "She sounds like she's whining … the only reason I've heard it the whole way through was when a friend was 'torturing' me while I rode in the back seat."

Second place belonged to Shakira's headache-inducing dance floor anthem "Hips Don't Lie." One reader commented: "Am I the only one who thinks she sounds like she has a stuffy nose that she desperately needs to blow? That, or she's attempting to audition for a job doing voice-overs for Muppet Babies."

However, the first-place winner was Toby Keith's "The Angry American (Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue)."

"I never understood why other countries hated the USA so much until I heard this song," said one entrant.

Another one, who requested I specifically state her name as Anonymous with a capital A, pretty much summed up the bulk of responses: "Every generation has its heroes and villains, but worst of all are the dimwits; stupid people who have, through some unfortunate series of circumstances, been granted the power and the ability to broadcast their inanity and make the rest of us open-minded, intelligent people look bad. Toby Keith is one of those people. Somewhere, a whole village of idiots is missing their mayor." Frankly, I couldn't agree more.

What have we learned, dear reader? That you, that we are not alone. So when you're walking through the Russell House and "We Built This City" by Starship comes on and a grimace crawls over your face, take a look around.

Chances are you'll see someone else with an equally pained expression. Catch their eye and give 'em a wave; just a simple acknowledgement. I'm here, buddy. I feel your pain.

Calling Radio Haters (Originally Posted On 3/7/07)

2007-09-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

First of all, dear readers, this is a two-part column. That's right, the margins of the newspaper are too narrow to fully hold and portray the epic scale of this undertaking.

OK, so maybe not. Truth be told, the second part can't be written without your input. But we'll get to that later.

Music is a big part of a college student's life, from the piped-in hits of the 1970s-1990s that echo joylessly about the Russell House to the latest indie darlings playing on our own local radio station. It's everywhere, whether students realize it or not. I've met plenty of people who don't have a favorite song, but I've never met a person who didn't have at least one song they hated.

And I'm not just talking strong dislike. I'm talking tear-the-radio-out-of-the-car-panel-and-throw-it-out-the-window-I-hate-this-song-so-much dislike. I know you have at least one song that fits this category.

I have quite a few of them.

At the top of the list is the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps." Seeing as this was released a few years ago, some of you may not remember it. If so, you live a charmed life. If not, I personally apologize because by now Fergie's voice is wandering around the inside of your skull, whining about her "lovely lady lumps" like some sort of malevolent exotic dancer ghost.

Any time this comes on the radio while riding with friends, I just stick my head out the window and hope a passing car hits it, granting me the eternal peace I've always wished for. Two birds, one stone.

Another top pick is Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." Bad enough it was a barely decent song, but when first released, it seemed like it was played on every Clear Channel station every three minutes. Oddly enough, "My Heart Will Go On" is more than four minutes long. The heavy repetition of a song automatically ramps up the overall "badness" of it.

These are only two among the multitudes of songs that warrant my hatred, and I truly wish I had more room to discuss the rest of them, but I have run out of room and sanity. Believe me, I wish I could go on, but if I do I'll lose them entirely.

Not too many years ago, columnist Dave Barry tapped into this rich vein of human emotion. Times have changed, and I believe a new edition of "Songs People Really, Really Hate" is in order.

That's where you come in, dear reader. Go online to the Daily Gamecock Web site (www.dailygamecock.com) and comment on this article.

Tell me one song that fills you with absolute, undiluted wrath every time the melody wafts into your ears. Heck, shoot me an e-mail at thesesongskindofsuck@yahoo.com if you don't want to worry about the censorship that comes with posting on a public forum.

Don't hold back. Tell me how you really feel. The results will be discussed in my next column.

Fight Fire With Fire (Originally Posted 2/22/07)

2007-09-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

I have been asked by both friends and simple acquaintances why I consider myself a misanthrope, why my blood temperature hangs around 99 degrees centigrade most of the time and why Howard Beale is one of my idols.

Here is one of the answers, dear reader:

The presidential candidate for the American Nazi Party, John Taylor Bowles, lives in Laurens County.

"I'm going to move large segments of the non-white population back to their respective homelands because I have a right to do that by law and I'll probably declare it a national emergency," Bowles said during an interview with the Columbia City Paper. He also went on to say he would pull all non-whites from the Armed Forces because, in his own words, "They pose a big threat. They're learning things that eventually they're going to use in a revolutionary setting."

Maybe Bowles forgot the only reason why revolutions happen: because the current situation, in a word, sucks. This, I think, would accurately describe the condition of this country should a Nazi ever take power.

Oh USA, my beloved nation, what is wrong with you? Are you just ignorant or are you so committed to universal tolerance you've reverted to a state of social passivity?

Either way, tell me -- why does the American Nazi Party even exist? Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't around 400,000 Americans (not to mention the 48 million Allied forces total) die to stop the Nazis from literally whitewashing the world sometime around the 1939-1945-time period? That's what I thought.

This disease of this political entity was created in 1959, and yet it still thrives today. Why has such an entity been allowed to exist at all, an entity that dwells on absurd and downright stupid prejudices, in my country, the place where people came to get AWAY from prejudice in the first place?

First Amendment rights, of course. But the Nazi party, in enforcing their doctrine, would erase those very Constitution-given rights. So should they be given the rights in the first place just to destroy them? I think not. I'm not saying these people have no right to think they're better than others -- I'm just saying they should have no legal right to a physical political party to rally around and potentially (though not probably) gain public office, seeing as the very ideals they represent are against the principles upon which the United States were founded.

Somebody can sit on their back porch all day, wrapped in a combination Confederate/Nazi flag, spouting racial epithets for all I care, but the minute that person gains the potential (not even the power, just the potential) to impose their own convoluted, supremacist, obsolete, ignorant value system over me and the people I care for, I lose any and all tolerance for such a view.

I look forward to a day when all organized hate groups: the KKK, the New Black Panthers and the American Nazi Party are erased with the same prejudice they would show in destroying their own targets, and the members rehabilitated into useful parts of the human race. But until that day, I'll continue to be the cynic; the misanthrope who knows the best weapon against intolerance is intolerance itself.

Oh Thank God, The Internets Are Here.

2007-02-15T08:33:00.000-08:00

I GOT YOU ALL IN CHECK, WOO-HAA!

And what have we learned?

That a sense of humor erodes like a rock when battered too hard by the tides of a harsh reality.

Not bad for a first column, I suppose.

I never really intended to write something devaluing the dangers of child abuse. I set out to make fun of what I considered to be a very poorly-done segment of journalism based around an odd circumstance.

From my original standpoint, I succeeded. And I kind of want to say I'm sorry, not for what I said but for what I didn't state obviously enough, that pedophilia is a real threat to kids every day. Sure, we joke about it. Hell, Pedobear is a certain popular website's mascot for crying out loud.

But the truth of it is I'm not sorry at all. I respect your viewpoint but the simple truth of the matter is that your opinion has been affected by what you've been through, just like mine has even though I'm affected in a different way. Every circumstance, no matter what the actual seriousness of it may be, becomes life-or-death for you because you've been exposed to. But I don't deal in harsh realities. I deal in making people laugh.

And from everything I've been hearing, both on the internet and in the real world, with you being the exception, I've succeeded.

And that, at least for now, is good enough for me.

Fox News Screws Things Up...Again.

2007-02-15T08:11:00.001-08:00

OOOOOH SNAP.

February 7^th, Fox News out of Milwaukee ran a story on the Nintendo DS and the incredible threat it poses to the well-being of anyone, particularly children, who possesses one. The segment starts out innocently enough (except for the reporter, Brad Hicks, who seems to be constantly yelling): a montage of in-game screenshots, giggling kids and some guy saying “Nintendo DS is going to redefine portable handheld gaming the way iPod is redefining music.”

However, Hicks interrupts.

“Well, stop the music, because it’s also redefining how vulnerable your kids are…to child molesters.” Obviously, it’s time to get serious…well, as serious as Fox News can get.

The story continues as Hicks cheerfully explains a feature of the DS called Pictochat, which allows users to talk to each other back and forth much like instant messenger programs. Fox News then takes the time to point out most parents don’t know about the feature. For a moment, it looks like there’s hope, it looks like this could be a piece on a lack of parent-child interaction and communication. Ha ha, no.

After the usual paranoid tomfoolery, Hicks decides to demonstrate Fox’s theory by Pictochatting with the girls upstairs. He starts off the conversation with the usual pleasantries, “What’s your dog’s name?” but then moves into pedophile-rapist territory with “What’s your name? Where do you go to school? Where do you live?” Obviously no child is safe, because they are forced to answer these questions by the pedophiles’ evil powers…or, y’know, maybe they just figured there wasn’t anything to worry about since the person they were messaging was a reporter they recognized from television…and he was sitting downstairs…with their mother.

Hicks also goes on to demonstrate in the midst of a crowded mall that the DS’s range for interaction with another unit is not 65 feet as advertised, but 300 feet. Obviously, a pedophile will use his/her telescopic Pedovision to find a child with Pictochat open (Yes, the program has to be running in order for messages to be sent) in a huge group of shoppers.

Right.

The climax of this entire piece is when Hicks mentions that pedophiles might see kids in the back of a vehicle while on the interstate and, knowing the kids’ parents would be too occupied with actually watching the road, would start messaging them.

Wait, what?

The last time I checked, people needed to pay attention to traffic in order to drive. Then again, I guess pedophiles could just use those evil powers to steer while they tap away at their DS screens, effortlessly drawing personal information from the children in the next van over.

So what is the lesson here? Getting a DS is one step away from disappearing into the Pedomobile, the stereotypical white van with no windows that parents everywhere loathe and fear? That’s certainly a possibility if kids don’t know any better, but as long as parents don’t pay attention to what their kids are doing, there will always be the paranoia that aforementioned kids spend every hour being tracked by molesters. And as long as that paranoia exists, we’ll always have Fox News to enhance it to absurd levels and then feed it back to us.