tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75887757251948061732024-03-13T08:15:15.561-07:00Observations From a HobbyistHobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-55883966743778090032020-04-10T09:47:00.000-07:002020-04-10T09:47:56.550-07:00A Suggestion For Unity SeekersSo, Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. With the primary effectively over, now is the painful time of trying to build unity in order to defeat Donald Trump; a nightmarish figure.<br />
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This act of building unity is mostly focused on the high-level decisions of the principals of the story: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and the various political and activist groups on the left. However, this act of building unity happens every day among the individual voters and supporters of each campaign. People on both sides have discussions about having to come together under Biden. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the tenor of these discussions often gets ugly very quickly. The fact that they usually occur over social media, where people are very far apart and have no problem sharing their frustration in an environment where there's no blowback, only makes this worse.<br />
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As an obvious Bernie Sanders supporter on both Facebook and Twitter, I have been witness to, and participated in, many of these discussions. They usually go very poorly, with both sides further cementing their disdain for each other. Not all interactions have been that way though; some have been very positive. So, I thought that it might be helpful for people who are all-aboard with Biden to have some sort of guide in how to reach me (and, I suspect, some others).<br />
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Note: I do plan on voting for Joe Biden in November, but there are some Biden supporters that are bound and determined to try to convince me otherwise.<br />
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First, allow me to provide some context to why these conversations are so fraught. 2016 was an extremely difficult year for anybody and everybody who considers themselves on the left. People that were for Hillary were angry at Bernie for fighting the first potential female President. Of course, this anger of the man himself trickled to Bernie's supporters, whom they viewed as too intransigent at best, or secret sexists at worst. This led to Bernie's supporters feeling attacked, and responding in kind. We saw Hillary supporters as ignorant of the issues at best, or paid, dishonest actors at worst. This would have been a difficult enough obstacle to overcome on its own, but, as more and more anti-Bernie news hits and op-ed pieces came out, Bernie's supporters started to feel attacked by the very people whom they trusted to bring them the news. This turned party unity from an already difficult proposition to a nigh impossible one. The attitude among Bernie's supporters at that time could best be described as us-against-the-world. While Bernie's supporters did mostly vote for Hillary, it wasn't done with any enthusiasm. Bernie did 39 rallies for Hillary, and not one Bernie supporter I saw cared one whit. By the time that Hillary eventually lost, the mutual anger on both sides had hardened into complete distrust of each other.<br />
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Fast forward to today, and those wounds still haven't healed: if anything, they've deepened. Given the mass coalescence around Biden just before Super Tuesday just as it looked like Bernie was going to win, it has further cemented that us-against-the-world mentality. The arguments are now even more aggressive, because of the heightened stakes of COVID-19, the pending economic crash and climate change becoming more of an obvious threat.<br />
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For the record, I'd like to note that none of this stuff is fun to bring up. I don't enjoy feeling like I have to fight my friends, family or even random people online. If I want to argue over something, it's which basketball team is the best, or which video game has the best story. I bring all of this up in order for full-on Biden backers that are interacting with Bernie supporters online some context as to why Bernie supporters might be so obstinate.<br />
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Now that all of that context has been made clear, let's get to the point: how can Biden supporters reach Bernie supporters online? Well, it isn't easy: Bernie supporters are not only angry at other politicians (if that were the case, the anger would peter out, and it wouldn't be a big deal); they're extremely distrustful of them as well. The feeling of trust that many progressives had of those that were more establishment was broken in 2016 and shattered over the course of this year's Primary. However, it can be done. It just has to be done very carefully. First, here are a few examples of arguments that DON'T work:<br />
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1. "Biden is better than Trump."<br />
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Why this 'should' work: there are only two choices on the ballot with a chance of winning, and among lefties, Biden is factually and demonstrably better than Trump.<br />
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Why this doesn't work: outside of a couple of people currently on Trump's staff, just about every single other American is better than Trump. I could go through my Facebook friends list and have a very hard time finding people that would be worse than Trump. Voting for the lesser of two evils is just not something that Bernie supporters (who tend to be more aspirational) are going to go for.<br />
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2. "Bernie did a great job in moving our country forward. Now let's get those things done together with Joe."<br />
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Why this 'should' work: this is recognizing Bernie's good work in his political career, and it's gracious even among a difficult fight. It legitimizes Bernie supporters.<br />
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Why this doesn't work: this feels nice, but it falls apart when you're trying to get progressives to get behind Joe Biden; a guy who stands in opposition to many of the policies that animate Bernie's supporters. Biden fights against Medicare For All, the Green New Deal and legalizing marijuana. He's for more foreign interventions. He's very friendly with Wall St. Progressives know that the good work that Bernie and his supporters put in will be for nothing if Joe has his way, so this argument comes off as extremely condescending. What we hear when someone says that is: "Here's your participation trophy and a pat on the head: now go sit in the corner."<br />
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3. "The Supreme Court"<br />
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Why this 'should' work: the SCOTUS is an obviously important institution that influences policy long past the term and even life of a the President that appoints its Justices. It is vital that we get Presidents who appoint Justices who can help the country going forward.<br />
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Why this doesn't work: people who support more establishment candidates use the SCOTUS as a hostage against progressives, in order to avoid talking about any real issues that they might be weak on. Progressives are people, and people don't like ultimatums.<br />
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4. "Any non-Biden vote is a vote for Trump."<br />
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Why this 'should' work: lefties don't like Trump, and we want him gone.<br />
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Why this doesn't work: this type of argument seeks to shame people who have thoughtful opinions that happen to be different from yours. Calling people "whiny", "childish", or "Russian bots" for deigning to question a political figure is repulsive, because it shows such weakness in your own position that you have to resort to ad hominem attacks.<br />
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So those are the arguments that don't work. Unfortunately, most of the arguments that I've seen from gung-ho Biden folks falls into these categories. There is one argument from Biden folks that I've seen that is pretty effective (for me, anyways):<br />
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"Look, Biden isn't great on everything, but he's at least a bit malleable. Let's get him in and push him like hell."<br />
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Now, if you've read this far, you might be thinking: "What? This is just a combination of 1 and 2 on your arguments that don't work list. This makes no sense." Well, you're half-right: logically, they're the same arguments. The difference is in the framing: arguments 1 and 2 are from the perspective of someone who believes in Joe Biden. Biden is framed positively in both, and that's where they fall on deaf ears. Remember, Bernie supporters are deeply distrustful of any political figure who isn't Bernie or Bernie surrogates. So, Bernie supporters dismiss any positive arguments for Biden reflexively. The argument that does work has the opposite framing; it's from a place of distrust. It acknowledges reality as Bernie supporters see it.<br />
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However, more importantly, I think that it signals that Bernie supporters are welcome in the party. Throughout 2016, we were marginalized, attacked, dismissed and later blamed for Hillary's loss. That made us feel unwelcomed in the party, and why so many people were pushed into supporting other political groups, or just disengaging altogether. It's only natural that you want to organize with like-minded people; much more so if there's a sense that you're being attacked from all sides. This argument tells me that you hear me, you value my opinion and that you want me around.<br />
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This argument won't work on everyone, obviously. You'd get push back from Bernie supporters who would want some more proof that Biden's malleable. However, approaching a Bernie supporter this way has a better chance of being pleasant, and thus more likely to be productive towards the goal of unity.<br />
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Or you can say I'm full of crap and see how that goes.<br />
<br />HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-12925763778660132032017-12-18T23:39:00.001-08:002017-12-18T23:39:22.837-08:00Thoughts of HomeIt's strange how the stream of consciousness works sometimes.<br />
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A new acquaintance recommended that I listen to a hip-hop artist, which, being a lover of music, of course I took her up on. While I thought this artist was alright, I decided to listen to some other artists that I prefer, and I came across this song, which I hadn't listened to in a couple of years...<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1135648822"><br /></a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FJUD0rEPWM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FJUD0rEPWM</a><br />
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...and I was not, and remain not, ready for the emotions that have been going through me since then.<br />
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Living in Taiwan, for the most part, has been an absolute breeze since I came here. So much so that it has actually been very difficult to write about. Frankly, the biggest difference between Taiwan and the US, when it comes to daily life, is the 14-hour time jump. The language barrier can be tough at times, but everyone is so nice (locals and expats) that the difficulty with Chinese is pretty well-mitigated. Everything else? Roads, cars, buses, parks, malls, movie theaters, baseball games: it's pretty much coming to a more peaceful, cheaper state that happens to speak Chinese and have single-payer healthcare.<br />
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At least, that's how I thought until recently.<br />
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Over the last week, I've been feeling pretty empty, for the most part. Unfortunately, I was having difficulty articulating why. After all, nothing had really changed over the previous weeks, which were some of the best times that I had had since coming to Taiwan. And then it hit me: <b>I miss home.</b><br />
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This is a really simple statement that seems obvious, and it would be for most people, I would imagine. However, if I'm to be perfectly honest, I've never felt particularly attached to any one place or even group of people. I know that this is incredibly hurtful to my family and close friends, but it's true: after living in many different homes with many different housemates and family compositions in my childhood to many family members (both extended and immediate) passing away in my teenage years, it's been really hard to attach myself to anyone. In many ways, moving abroad seemed to be an obvious choice.<br />
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Spending Christmas away from home was just an extension of that; a part that I always knew was going to happen when I made the choice to move here. Seeing all of the decorations and hearing the music (and the above trigger) has made me realize something, however: spending Christmas with family was really the one constant in my life for over 27 years, and now, that won't be a possibility because of a decision that I made, as an adult, to leave.<br />
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And I feel like an eight-year-old alone in a field.<br />
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I suppose that I should have anticipated it, but nope; no such luck.<br />
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In all of this, though, I think that I finally understand what my meaning of home truly is. Home is my base; the foundation of my psyche. Home is the people that love me and whom I love equally in return.<br />
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Right now, I can't be home, but-at last-I know where it is. And, even though I'm not there, having that understanding is heartening.<br />
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Who knows? Maybe I can extend that home to out here someday.<br />
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Merry Christmas, I love you all.<br />
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Sincerely,<br />
BrendanHobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-17935269725745219422016-11-11T09:42:00.000-08:002016-11-11T09:42:03.659-08:00Oh My God, NO! Part 2: What Do Progressives Do From Here?So here we find ourselves, facing a President Trump with both chambers of Congress controlled by Republicans. <div>
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Ugh...</div>
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The question now is, how do we go forward? How can us progressives keep moving forward and keep fighting?</div>
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Here is my three part plan for how we not only keep fighting, but we win in a complete annihilation of anyone who stands in our way:</div>
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1.) Stay woke. News and politics is depressing right now, and it's really tempting to get away from it all. Now, I don't recommend only following politics, as that will make anyone insane, but stay aware of what's happening. Why is this important? Right now, the Democratic establishment is pushing Howard Dean, lobbyist for big pharma and ex-coworker with Newt Gingrich, to be the next head of the DNC. Right now, the Democratic establishment is pushing Tim Kaine for President in 2020. </div>
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Yep.</div>
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Now, if that causes you to ask yourself, "What the fuck? Isn't this the shit that they pulled this year that led them to losing to Donald Trump? Why would they do that?" then that means you're an intelligent, clear-eyed person. The establishment, however, doesn't think that way: they think that they are blameless in this, and that they still have the right idea. After all, they've been doing this for forty years; at this point, it's all they know.</div>
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We have to fight the Democratic establishment so that they don't keep pulling this bullshit and so that we have a party for the people that can stand up to Republicans who will do their best to destroy the planet. Right now, Keith Ellison, with Bernie's blessing, is also running to be head of the DNC. They need our support to help Democrats save themselves.</div>
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This also includes activism. Pick an issue or two that you feel particularly passionate about, and fight for those on a regular basis on every level of government. Money in politics, climate change, LGBTQ rights, international peace and a whole bunch of other issues have strong activist movements within them. Join in with them and fight for the change you want to see.</div>
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2.) We populate Congress with progressives in 2018. Thankfully, every two years, we get the chance to remake our federal legislature in our image. We start now pushing for progressive House and Senate candidates who will fight for us, with emphasis on 'fight'. As in, not look to compromise and the first sign of a struggle. If the incumbent in your district is a true progressive, awesome good for you. If you don't (the vast majority of the country), then we have to defeat that incumbent, regardless of party affiliation. This isn't impossible; there is very recent precedent with the Tea Party in 2010. There's no reason why we can't do the same exact thing. Time to have our own Bizarro Tea Party. </div>
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3.) We pick a super strong progressive to run for President in 2020. Like Elizabeth Warren, for instance. Some are pushing for Tulsi Gabbard, another fine choice. Any strong progressive who runs a left-wing populist campaign will obliterate Trump from the universe, and you can count on that.</div>
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Voila, we have a progressive government in the span of only one Presidential term. Will there be resistance? Of course, but not quite as much as you think. Over half of the country actually align with Bernie's platform with regards to the different policy positions. People are thirsting for progressive policies; they just don't know it right now, because neither the Republicans or the establishment Democrats have offered them. They'll back someone who is willing to fight for progressive positions.</div>
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Don't give up my friends; if we put in the work to make the change that we want to see happen, we will win and we'll win faster than you think.</div>
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To that end, I'm going to announce that I will be using this blog to find out who the progressives are in Congress and relate what I find. How will I do this? I will go through their policy positions and cross-reference this with their donor lists and votes in office. I will do one Congressional Democrat every day starting tomorrow. I'll also make a video going over my findings and posting them. That way, we can know who we should support, who we should primary and be well informed in doing so.</div>
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That's all everyone! Remember: we will win!</div>
HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-65388384737202017782016-11-09T04:45:00.001-08:002016-11-09T04:45:18.989-08:00Oh My God, NO! Part 1: Why Hillary Clinton LostWell, there's no way that I'm getting any sleep after that fucking debacle, so may as well share some thoughts to get them off of my chest.<br />
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Considering that the vast majority of my Facebook friends are liberal, my feed has been filled with heartbreak, frustration and confusion with regards to the fact that Donald Trump is now the President-Elect of the United States. Many are wondering: "How the hell did we get here? How could she lose to THAT GUY!?" I'm going to try to articulate some reasons that I think led her to lose the election to the most disliked candidate in American political history (and yes: she lost it far more than he won it).<br />
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For the sake of brevity, I won't go into the reasons that the basket of deplorables didn't vote for her: those I think are fairly obvious and they didn't cause her to lose the election, as Hillary wasn't going to win any alt-right votes anyway.<br />
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1.) She had no message about why she was good. This is a pretty big reason in my mind. Here's a question that I wish more people had asked her and held her feet to the fire for an answer: Why do you want to be President? What do you want to do to move our country forward? I don't remember anything from her or even her campaign that came remotely close to some sort of positive vision for the country. <br />
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Bernie? I know that he was running because he wanted to have a more just society: lower income inequality, green energy to fight climate change, free and fair elections; his vision was very clear. We all knew and know what Bernie stood and stands for.<br />
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Trump? I know that he was running to marginalize anybody who wasn't a WASP man, to protect us from the others and (nominally) to enforce economic protectionism. Do I believe that he's on the side of the worker? Considering I have an IQ over 85, fuck no. Is the racism and hatred horrifying to your average American in normal circumstances? Hell yes! But it was a vision.<br />
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Hillary provided none of that. She didn't have some overarching grand vision for America and where we can go in four years. In fact, during the Democratic primary, she even had the position that the progressive positions that Bernie was espousing were too pie in the sky. For example, she actually said that single payer "will never, ever come to pass," in the Democratic-supposedly progressive-primary. What the fuck? Why are you bragging about being more conservative during the DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY!? To make matters worse, during the General election, her message can be boiled down to: Trump bad. Me good. This was because Hillary never really had a vision, or a reason to be President besides the fact that she really wanted to be President. Hence why she didn't have any sort of energy or momentum to her campaign: her rallies were tiny, the excitement around her was low and her support was very soft, leading to non-scandals like the Comey letter heavily affecting her chances, while Trump was found on tape bragging about sexual harassment and have that confirmed by 12 separate women and still was able to recover. He had strong, steadfast support while she had none of that.<br />
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2.) Hillary is a bad candidate. She doesn't connect with people at all; when she's in the public eye, her popularity sinks like a stone in water. I think that it's fair to say this: people hate her. Regardless of those feelings are justifiable or not (I happen to think that the vast majority of reasons given are complete bullshit), the people at large don't trust her. It's unbelievably difficult to win an election when you're disliked and viewed as untrustworthy.<br />
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If that's the case though, why'd she beat Bernie? She benefited greatly from having by FAR the higher name recognition early on in the primary, which is always helpful in getting votes, and the fact that many of the primaries were closed, meaning that the much higher population of independents in the country couldn't vote for Bernie in the primary, leaving the vote to registered Democrats, many of whom are party loyalists more prone to go for Clinton because she's been a Democrat for longer than Bernie had (stupid reason, I know, but true). And this is before the DNC email leaks came out showing that the DNC was colluding with the Clinton campaign anyway. Long story short, she had every possible advantage over Bernie, including the "neutral" DNC on her side, and <i>still</i> almost lost to a 75 year-old self-identified democratic socialist.<br />
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3.) She represented the establishment at a time that is very pro-populist. Let's face it: many people in the country are very much struggling to make a life for themselves here in America. Productivity and profits have gone up very steadily over the last 40 years, while wages have remained stagnant. A bunch of people are working multiple jobs to make sure that they and their families can survive. The American people haven't been able to put their collective finger on it yet, but they do know that the folks in Washington, DC aren't listening to them, and they're <a href="https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf" target="_blank">right about that.</a> They haven't been listening for some time now, and the people are angry at them for not doing so. So, when an opportunity arises to burn the establishment to the ground, they did so. Not necessarily because they like Trump, but because they just want to cause the establishment pain for the pain that they've been feeling for decades now (this applies greatly to the rust belt states that have been hit hard by shitty trade deals).<br />
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Trump is a faux-populist; he isn't gonna do a single thing to help working families in my view, but the way to beat a faux-populist is with a <i>real</i> populist, as opposed to the most obvious symbol of the thing that many voters have come to believe is the reason for their suffering.<br />
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These are the 3 main reasons that I believe that Hillary lost the election to an orange, fascist, bimbo beta male in Donald Trump. The DNC was shockingly moronic in trying to push Hillary Clinton as their nominee this cycle.<br />
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In a way, this election is a bit like a Bizarro version of the 2008 election, where the candidate who claimed he was for the people and had a vision beat the status quo, establishment candidate. Which actually leads me to my next post: where do progressives go from here? Here's a clue: #BizarroTeaPary.<br />
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Until next time!HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-29204249772514977052016-08-26T22:44:00.001-07:002016-08-26T22:44:40.379-07:00Minor Injustice that Causes Me Great AnnoyanceHello everyone! It's been a while, I know. I'm working on a couple of ideas for blog posts that I should be posting in a few days. Before I get to work on finishing the first one though, something came to my attention that made me just want to vent a bit.<br />
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I'm a huge movie lover. Last year, despite not really being able to afford it, I would try to go see at least one movie every weekend. This didn't happen, of course, and I've been further limited this year by a few separate factors. However, I still try to go see as many as I can, and I have greatly enjoyed what I have partaken in the theaters this year: "Hail, Caesar!", "Deadpool", "Hardcore Henry", "The Nice Guys", "Captain America: Civil War", "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping" and "Keanu" among others, have all been fun romps for a couple of hours. That being said, the movie that I went to see last weekend blew them all away, and that was the animated masterpiece that is "Kubo and The Two Strings".<br />
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"Kubo" is essentially a a Japanese epic that would be somewhat analogous to a kid's version of <u>The Odyssey;</u> a major quest fraught with monsters and magic, centered around Kubo, a young boy who can make origami move with his powers, often channeled through his <i>shamisen</i>, a traditional Japanese guitar-like instrument. Without giving anything away about the plot, this movie is pure art: from the incredible stop-motion animation done by Laika (just add another to this list along with "Paranorman"), to the great voice work to go along with that animation (especially Matthew McConnaughey, who does a fantastic job just kinda being himself, really), to the truly thoughtful themes and the beautiful, powerful and thought-provoking ending. The movie made me laugh, think and cry in equal measure while making me feel like I had grown as a person over the course of its 1 hour and 42 minute running time. Of course, on top of all that, they had the amazing Regina Spektor do a beautiful cover of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" with a <i>shamisen</i> as the lead instrument in the arrangement, which I think does a fantastic job of encapsulating the spirit of the film: both its mournful and hopeful sides.<br />
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Here is the video released by Focus Features (the distributor). It's the single version of the song with clips of the movie interspersed with Regina in the studio:<br />
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8hUOKjy-9-o/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8hUOKjy-9-o?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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Try and tell me you don't want to see this movie after watching that.<br />
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So, why am I annoyed exactly? Well, according to boxofficemojo.com, "Kubo" debuted at number 4 this past weekend, behind "Suicide Squad", "Sausage Party" and "War Dogs".<br />
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America, <b>this is why we can't have nice things.</b><br />
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I can't speak personally to the quality of "War Dogs" or "Sausage Party", as I have yet to see either of them (I plan on seeing "Sausage Party" tomorrow), but I have seen "Suicide Squad" and I can very comfortably say that that movie has no business being above "Kubo" in ANYTHING aside from budget and amount of stupid moments. Seriously, what the fuck guys!?<br />
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Normally, I couldn't care less about box office numbers: I didn't care last year that "Jurassic World" destroyed "Dope" in sales last year despite "Dope" being vastly superior in every way. But when an undeserving product of hype and marketing like "Suicide Squad" (which was decent by recent DC film universe standards, but hardly close to the "Guardians of the Galaxy" it was desperately trying to be) has more viewers on its third weekend vs. a fucking masterpiece like "Kubo and The Two Strings" on its first, I can't help but be way more annoyed than I should.<br />
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I sure hope that "Kubo" is profitable for the sake of Laika, because I want to see a lot more of them in the future; otherwise this might be their last movie, which would be a crying shame.<br />
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Not that America deserves any more greatness from them.HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-17445138403331743282016-01-17T20:47:00.002-08:002016-01-17T20:47:41.379-08:00On a Serious NoteHey everyone. If you don't mind, I'd like to bring us to a more serious topic (don't worry; I'm currently working on a larger post for later). I also apologize for the delay, but you'll be glad to know that I shouldn't be quite so delayed going forward, as the bulk of the cause of those was some technical issues.<br />
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Now that that's out of the way, let's continue.<br />
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For those of you that don't know, I'm employed by an organization that works to help people that have been affected by disasters. This includes meeting people that have had fires in their respective homes. Now, considering that I have been living and working in San Antonio; the seventh largest city in the United States, and one whose economy is hugely based off of service industries and is therefore relatively low income for over a year, I have seen quite a few home fires. Some in normal homes, some in nice apartments, some in what might as well be shacks that were completely abandoned in terms of healthy living by all but the scummiest of landlords.<br />
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For the most part, the fire responses that I have taken part in, while sad, have had people come out unharmed. Unfortunately, there have been those that I have gone on where the family affected wasn't so lucky; those are the responses that will truly break your heart. On the worst of those responses, there has been a single constant on all of them. What is that constant?<br />
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<a href="http://foreverfences.com/images/s6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://foreverfences.com/images/s6.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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These, I'm sure that you all know, are called burglar bars. You see these a lot in the inner city neighborhoods across the country. Their intended purpose is to keep those trying to get in the home unlawfully from doing so. Unfortunately, they have the unintended consequence of keeping people in in time of an emergency.</div>
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I'm going to try to write this with all of the dignity that I can muster, so bear with me: <b>Fuck. Burglar. Bars.</b></div>
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These things are the absolute bane of my existence. Every time I drive by a house that has these up, all I see are homes that are potential death traps. People in home fires have about two minutes to escape; when most of the exits are covered up by these abominations, the people inside have to be really lucky that the fire doesn't come between them and the doors if they want to escape with their life. On top of that, but remember that the bars are supposed to keep burglars out? Well, unfortunately, pieces of metal aren't smart enough to distinguish between burglars and firefighters trying to get into the home to save the lives of those who can't get out. So, not only is the person inside potentially helpless, but help is impeded from coming in, taking away a safe avenue of home entry.</div>
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I can understand the impulse to protect one's home from robbery, especially in neighborhoods that are a little less than friendly (which every city has). That being said, a person living in a home is more likely to prevent their own escape from a fire than they are to prevent a burglary-especially when a burglar can come in with a crowbar and/or a power drill and take the bars out themselves.</div>
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If your home already has burglar bars on the windows, I implore you to remove them or ask your landlord if you can do so. If you're that worried about burglars, get a rosebush and/or cactus and put it underneath the window on the outside; you're just as likely to impede potential burglars and it's easier to deal with sharp plants than it is to deal with smoke inhalation and extremely hot temperatures.</div>
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And it'll make me smile too.</div>
<br />HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-67046534074247328662016-01-01T19:53:00.001-08:002016-01-01T19:53:05.652-08:00College Football Playoff Review: Football 101Well that sucked.<br />
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The two semifinal games were about as exciting as a wet firework.<br />
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Orange Bowl: Clemson 37, Oklahoma 17<br />
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Cotton Bowl: Alabama 38, Michigan State 0<br />
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Ugh.<br />
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Both of these games, on paper, looked like interesting match-ups between teams that play very similar styles of football: the Orange Bowl had promise to be one heck of a display of fast-paced exciting offense, and the Cotton Bowl looked like a tough defensive struggle with poetic runs of five yards made possible by pure heart and desire. No matter what kind of football fan you are, the College Football Playoff looked like it would provide you with some quality drama over the New Year's Eve holiday.<br />
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As one could tell from the final scores, neither game turned out to be very competitive at the end. Clemson and Alabama went into the half, decided to turn up the intensity and subsequently blew their respective opponents out of the solar system.<br />
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In the interest of fairness, the Orange Bowl had a very good first half, with the Tigers and Sooners giving each other about as good as they got for the first half. Deshaun Watson running the zone read run scheme to perfection against Baker Mayfield's improvisation. The first half was characterized by a back and forth with strong offense and good, competitive defense. This all changed when Samaje Perine went down with an injury, ultimately killing OU's running attack, and the Clemson offensive line took over and started blowing the Oklahoma defense off the line. Four yards. Five yards. Nine yards. Clemson started churning yardage on the ground like it was nothing. In the second half, Clemson outscored Oklahoma 21-0. Just absolute pure domination.<br />
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The Cotton Bowl, after a quarter and a half of each team feeling the other out, was a demolition. Neither team could score on the other for the first twenty-two minutes while both were running into the walls of front-seven units that the two teams possess. It was a matter of which passing game would break out: the Spartan attack featuring Connor Cook, one of the best QBs in the country with Burbridge and Kings, or the Tide's Jake Coker along with Calvin Ridley and his merry band of WRs. As one can imagine, looking at the score, it was Coker and the Tide's air attack that took control with some impressive game planning by Lane Kiffin. Cook never did quite recover from his injured shoulder, and when he threw an interception at the goal line at the end of the first half, that was all she wrote. Alabama took control from that point on and crushed Michigan State for the rest of the game.<br />
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There are a couple of takeaways from both of these games: Deshaun Watson looks like the best player in the country; his gravitas on the field led to almost all of Clemson's offensive production. The threat of him in the run game not only helps his tailback (Gallman was amazing in Orange Bowl), but it also helps his offensive line, because the defense is forced to read and react against that run game, which slows the defensive line down, therefore making them easier to move off of where they want to be. Without Watson, I'm not sure that the Tigers win the ACC, and they definitely wouldn't be in the semifinal. He has the most potential to dominate any particular game he's in. On the other hand, Alabama's front line is an impressive unit to behold. They held Michigan State's tough running attack to almost nothing (MSU had a a net rushing total of -2 yards until the fourth quarter, when the game was already out of hand), and they got consistent pressure on Cook, especially up the middle without blitzing. The Spartan QB was constantly harassed and either taking sacks or throwing inaccurate passes to his receivers, who were blanketed in double-coverage.<br />
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This leads to the most important lesson of all, which is the fact that football is incredibly simple: whichever team can physically move the other against their will will win the game 99.999999999% of the time. The most important players to watch aren't the WRs, they aren't the RBs, and they really aren't the QBs. The most important players to watch are on the offensive and defensive lines. If one team's line beats the other team's line, that team is going to control the entire pace of play and the other team will be taken out of what they want to do. <br />
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For example, Clemson destroyed Oklahoma in the second half because the Tiger offensive line was pushing the Sooner defensive line back four and five yards on nearly every play. When that happens, the defense can't run downhill to take care of the run game, and is therefore on its heels. This is the death knell of good defense, as the defense is already unsure of what will happen on a given play; they have to react to the offense by the nature of the offense having possession of the ball. If they're delayed an extra half second by not being able to run toward the line to make plays, then they are at a severe disadvantage (after all, an average football play takes about three seconds, if that; meaning a half second represents about 18% of the total time of the average play). <br />
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This works the other way as well; Alabama was able to crush Michigan State because their defensive line blew apart the Spartan offensive line, and stopped the run before any tailback could get started. They also prevented the quarterback and receivers from ever getting into a comfortable rhythm (which is nigh essential to a strong passing attack). The Spartan offense was rendered impotent because the offensive line couldn't hold their position consistently.<br />
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Winning the line play is Football 101. And these two games put that fact on full display.<br />
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Given that, as far as a prediction for the National Championship game, I can't bring myself to pick against Alabama and that defense. As much as I love Watson (and I still think that he's the best player on the field), the Crimson Tide are a stronger overall team.<br />
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Alabama 34, Clemson 17.<br />
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I hope that I'm wrong. HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-39132838236060922092015-12-27T23:10:00.002-08:002015-12-27T23:10:53.255-08:00Lazy Sunday Enabler Spotlight: Hey Sports FansHey there procrastinators, welcome to another edition of the Lazy Sunday Enabler Spotlight! This time, we'll be shamelessly stealing the intros of the videos that we will be talking about today...what fun!<br />
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Anyone who has spent any amount of time with me can tell you that I'm a sports fan. In fact, that is some hardcore underselling: I'm a shockingly large sports fan. The spirit of competition is something that I have always been born with, and sports as a young child was the perfect outlet. Despite not being entered into many organized youth sports, I made my way by playing pickup games with the kids at school, in the neighborhood, wherever I could find similarly minded people.<br />
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However, I wasn't exactly blessed with a world of athletic talent: even as a kid, I wasn't anything special in that arena (I was quite bitterly disappointed when I was voted "Most Intelligent" by my fellow members of my 3rd grade class instead of "Most Athletic"). So, in order to compete with the more athletic kids, I used the skills that led to my "Most Intelligent" designation: if I had to catch up to a faster kid who was running away from me, I would use an angle to beat him/her to the spot and catch them. If I had to avoid an run away from a faster kid, I would very my running speeds to keep my adversary on their toes, on their heels and flat-footed as I ran past them whilst they were in an uncomfortable position. I would subtly hint at running one way, then cut hard to the other way. For a couple of years, getting into high school, I could get away with this.<br />
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Tricks like those only last so long though, and my lack of athleticism caught up to me rather quickly. However, my love of sports persisted, but more so through the mental aspect of the game. Strategies, positions, routes, plays; all of these different decisions throughout the entire game leading to the drama of a great finish fascinated me further then the simple athletic ability did.<br />
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Recently, due to a few factors, my favorite sport has become basketball. Seeing as how basketball, on the face of it, depends so much on individual athleticism, this might come off as a strange love of an unathletic, skinny kid with no game. However, basketball is a sport which is, at its heart, built around percentages: more specifically, getting the best percentage chance to score on every given possession on offense while the defense tries to put you in positions where the percent chance of a made basket drops or the chance of a turnover increases. All of this occurs within a series of mini-plays that take the period of time that the shot clock encompasses. Throughout these mini-plays, there are many aspects in action: which is the best player to get the shot? From where should said player get the shot? Do you want to give the ball to that player immediately and therefore, decrease your chances of getting a turnover while also decreasing your chance to get an easier shot, or do you want to go for more of the high-risk, high-reward style of quick passes to find the right shot?<br />
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Don't believe me? Check this out then:<br />
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That would be one of my favorite videos (for obvious reasons) from a little channel called BBallBreakdown. This channel features Coach Nick as the host breaking down, in his opinion, why a certain team won a game; how certain full offensive schemes work; training techniques for improving the skills of players; and interviews with players and coaches about the finer details of their crafts.<br />
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This is a very simple idea, and not an altogether original one even. Why, then, is this channel the one I'm talking up? Well, like it does in basketball, it all comes in the execution: Coach Nick is a fantastic analyst of the game in ways that TV color commentators could only dream of. This is due to four things: relatively slick production values (always nice), he can speak from a place of experience as a coach (at what level, I'm not too sure, but the concepts remain the same), he has a gift for expressing complicated ideas in ways that the average viewer can understand, and-most importantly, I believe-he doesn't treat his audience like it's made up of laymen; he speaks to them as potential future coaches, which helps to separate him from a crowd of would-be Kenny Smiths. This last point is especially helpful to my enjoyment of the breakdowns, as I appreciate being treated as someone who can be trusted to understand what he is talking about over game footage, or figure it out quickly enough to continue following. It's like an English teacher realizing that you're at a stronger reading level, so the teacher gives you <u>The Lord of the Flies</u> while the rest of the class gets <u>Hop on Pop</u>; it feels good to be trusted to be smart enough to understand something beyond the basic mechanics. Consequently, I always feel smarter after watching one of his videos, and the more I feel like I learn about basketball, the more I enjoy it. The clever gentleman has created a cycle of positive reinforcement for sports nerds. So. Freaking. Brilliant.<br />
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If you'd like more proof, here is Coach Nick's two part series in which he breaks down his favorite offensive system, the Triangle:<br />
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There is a lot more goodness on his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/bballbreakdown" target="_blank">YouTube channel</a> as well as on his <a href="http://bballbreakdown.com/" target="_blank">website</a>. The website not only has extended versions of the videos on his channel, but the companion articles are just as juiced with basketball goodness. If you're interested in basketball, or just want to learn more about it, I highly encourage you to check both out.</div>
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Are you in? I know that I am.</div>
HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-59557637230134613792015-12-20T18:11:00.002-08:002015-12-20T18:11:39.693-08:00Lazy Sunday Enabler Spotlight: Time For Pre-dinner Snack!Hello fellow awesome folks! I hope that you're feeling as awesomely as I am!<br />
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This will likely come as no surprise to anyone, but I love me some YouTube. Truly. One might even say that it's...<br />
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...sorry.<br />
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No I'm not.<br />
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Anyway, over the last eight or nine years or so, I've spent what could possibly be an unhealthy amount of time on the site that made web videos truly mainstream, bringing the medium out from the teenage boy-niche into the lives of everyone who had access to the series of tubes. Of course, most of those used this portal of creativity and communication to watch short videos of kittens doing mundane (though, admittedly adorable) things.<br />
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However, kitten and cat videos have never been the YouTube genre for me. That being said, there have been a great many different videos and especially channels that I've found to be supremely entertaining. And I've decided that I would like to use this blog to highlight a few of them. Maybe, you might find something that you didn't know about before! So, without further adieu...<br />
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<b>Today's channel: Regular Ordinary Swedish Mealtime</b><br />
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The concept of the cooking show has been almost as old as the concept of the television itself. The first truly famous entry into the genre being "The French Chef" starring Julia Child, which debuted in 1963. Over the past 50-or-so years, we have seen numerous different incarnations of the cooking show, including an entire network devoted to them, with very few alterations made to Child's original formula.<br />
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This changed, though, as online content started to vary beyond flash animation; one of the benefits to the internet, YouTube included, is that it allows for some true freedom of expression, which leads to innovation into how to present older genres in new ways. The cooking show is, of course, not excepted, and has had a few separate incarnations on YouTube specifically; my absolute favorite of which is "Regular Ordinary Swedish Mealtime" (ROSMT for short).<br />
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ROSMT is based on a very simple premise: making relatively normal food using epic, badass methods and coupling that with lots of over-the-top screaming and exaggeration. This is due, almost entirely, to the fact that the original episodes were done as a parody of Epic Meal Time (who, of course, are just as exaggerated), and the creators of ROSMT got such a good reaction to those videos that they just decided to continue on...much to my delight!<br />
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ROSMT is my favorite cooking show on YouTube for two reasons: one; the creators get how exaggeration humor is supposed to work, and two; they are fantastic with comedic timing. To the latter's point, the majority of any given episode of ROSMT is done with furious pace: they introduce the dish that Niklas (the main character/cook) is preparing, go through the ingredients, describe the preparation process, have some scene with pre-dinner mayonnaise (it's good for you!), a scene with the terrifyingly evil Mr. Fox, eat the meal and sign off in about three to five minutes per episode. That is a lot of material to cover in just a couple of minutes, and the ROSMT crew do this by have a very quick pace to their episodes. That being said, while most of the episode is very snappy in order to keep the laughs going, there's invariably one scene in every episode that has a much slower pace to it. This scene serves to not only allow the viewer to catch a breath, but it also changes the natural rhythm of the episode, which keeps the viewer on his/her toes, which allows for better comedy (after all, a big portion of comedy is being surprised). The pace of the show is perfect for what the show entails in both concept and especially execution.<br />
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As to the channel understanding the nature of exaggeration comedy, this is best made clear, I think, by comparing it to what the show was initially a response to: Epic Meal Time (EMT). While I would never, in any way, classify EMT as a bad series, I would say that ROSMT is definitely the superior show. Both perform exaggerated versions of cooking shows, but ROSMT understands that what makes exaggeration humor work is that the task being completed in such a ridiculous way needs to be absurdly mundane by comparison. In EMT, the cooks are all acting like ridiculous frat boys, and in doing so, they make incredibly huge, possibly death-inducing dishes with burgers inside lasagna inside a BBQ pig (the last episode, in fact). However, this fits exactly within their characters, as these are exactly the kind of dishes that dumbass dickhead frat boys <i>would</i> cook in real life (maybe not quite to the extreme that they go to, but very similar in spirit). What they do fits in with what their characters would do naturally, so that contrast that draws the laughter out in this case isn't quite as strong. Whereas, in ROSMT's case, everything that they make is a normal meal, so the head chef screaming incoherently while destroying his property and ingredients in the manner of a viking is far more unexpected and ridiculous, which leads to more and bigger laughs. There's an episode where he cuts pork with a friggin' longsword. That's amazing no matter who you are.<br />
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So there you have it: one of my favorite YouTube channels in the world: ROSMT. Here's a sample episode (just in time for Christmas):<br />
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If you liked what you saw, please continue to watch more; creative entertainers should be rewarded!</div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfLGZs8bSDbkNJjCRIE7NSg" target="_blank">Regular Ordinary Swedish Mealtime</a></div>
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Take care, and remember: always have a pre-dinner mayonnaise; it's good for you.</div>
HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-22048629488940375712015-12-14T00:35:00.001-08:002015-12-14T00:35:17.418-08:00The Importance of a Diverse PortfolioAs any investment adviser will tell you, it is best if one has a diverse portfolio in multiple markets in order to maximize earning potential, while decreasing risk of losing everything in case one market goes badly. After all, you never want to "put all of your eggs in one basket." This principle follows in many other aspects of life (including life itself).<br />
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I have been practicing this principle, before I had ever even knew what it was, or what a principle was for that matter. How? Why, through my sports fandom of course! Due to my competitive nature, I have always been a fan of all sports...but I don't think that I would have understood how helpful that that would be depending on what was happening in the different sports at the same time. Sports are a constant source of new stories and drama, and, as someone who loves both of those things, it stands to follow that I enjoy all of them, despite the struggles that come up from time to time. That being said, the struggles are easier to deal with when you have another team that you care about doing well. Let's take a look at that, shall we?<br />
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Texas Longhorn Football: ugh, that was a brutal season. So many young players looking lost (especially early on in the season), so many losses in so many different ways: some by absolutely being dominated and some by missing the <i>extra point</i>. Some by special teams miscues, some by terrible officiating and some by turnovers. If it's possible to lose a football game via a certain method, you can safely assume that the Texas Longhorns of 2015 did so. All of that being said, they also beat a playoff team in Oklahoma, another top-15 team (at the time) in Baylor, and would have beaten Sugar Bowl-bound Oklahoma State if not for the obscene officiating that was mentioned above. On top of that, the team played an unprecedented amount of freshmen and sophomores; during the final game against Baylor, there were plays where eight of the eleven players on the field on defense were freshmen, and that doesn't include their best freshman in Malik Jefferson, who was out injured for the entire game. On offense, the two freshmen linemen were solid-to-good for the majority of the year, they found some strong players in the receiving corps, and they found a couple of potential stars in the backfield in sophomore D'Onta Foreman and freshman Chris Warren. The QB question remains, and there will be a new system implemented for next year, but all-in-all, the future looks bright, despite the extremely difficult growing pains. Hope springs eternal for next year.<br />
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Dallas Cowboys: as bad as the season for the Longhorn football team was to sit through, this season for the Cowboys has been far worse. Unlike the youthful Longhorns, the Cowboys were expected to contend for the NFC East and, ultimately, the Super Bowl. Instead, the season has been a barrage of injuries to the best players, putrid offense, defense that just can't quite make the winning play, and distracting/stupid comments from the veterans on the squad. This has just been a bad year, and the sooner it ends, the happier I'll be. If there's one good thing to draw from this season, it's that the team should return angry with a strong infusion of talent that comes with having high draft picks. In the NFL, that's sometimes all you need to make a big jump in the standings the following year (just look at Carolina for proof of that). If Tony Romo can stay healthy next year, along with Dez Bryant and some other players on the defensive side like Orlando Scandrick, who knows?<br />
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San Antonio Spurs: by far the best team of all of my rooting interests thus far. The addition of LaMarcus Aldridge hasn't made the Spurs the offensive juggernaut that was expected thus far, but they're still more than solid on that end, as the team is currently fourth in the NBA in offensive rating (points per 100 possessions), despite taking very few three-point shots, which is nigh unheard-of in today's Association. On the defensive end, the Spurs have been historically good, as they are currently giving up around 92 points per 100 possessions, which is the fewest in the NBA in the shot clock era. Allow that to sink in for a moment: the Spurs, thus far, have played the best defense in the NBA since a time limit to possessions was implemented for the <i>1953-54 season</i>. That's incredible when you look at the numbers; when you watch them play, it makes more sense. The starting lineup has two elite wing defenders in Kawhi Leonard (who may as well be a land-dwelling kraken with how far his extremities extend to snatch opposing passes) and Danny Green; a still-elite rim protector in Tim Duncan (by some measures, the best in the NBA at nearly 40 years old); and a surprisingly capable big man in the aforementioned Aldridge, and you have the makings of a formidable defensive unit. Couple the fantastic defense with an improving offense led by Leonard, Aldridge, a rejuvenated Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, and a solid stable of bench players in Patty Mills, Boris Diaw, David West and the young Jonathan Simmons and Kyle Anderson, and you have the makings of one of the top two teams in the NBA. As a pure basketball fan, all I can do is hope for no injuries and have a Western Conference Finals between these Spurs and the Golden State Warriors, who've been even more impressive offensively than the Spurs have defensively. Basketball and sports fans everywhere deserve to have these two teams healthy and playing each other in a seven-game series.<br />
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Texas Longhorn Men's Basketball: this team is a work in progress. Under new head coach Shaka Smart, and playing in the murderer's row that is the Big XII in basketball, it was always going to be a bit of a retooling year. That being said, coach Smart's team have been quick learners, and the team has made tremendous strides not even ten games into the season. The Longhorns just beat the #3 ranked North Carolina Tar Heels in a game that absolutely no one expected to win. Great rebounding on the defensive end coupled with a couple of awesome offensive performances by Javan Felix and Eric Davis, Jr. led to a great win. The team will definitely still have its ups and downs (they still foul too much, and free throws are a problem), but the team is exciting, and they should be on their way to contending in the very tough Big XII sooner rather than later. The future looks bright, and an NCAA tourney bid most definitely can't be discounted this year either.<br />
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Texas Rangers: last season ended painfully, losing to the Blue Jays in the first round of the playoffs, but the future-again-looks bright. The team has a solid foundation in its rotation, with Derek Holland, Martin Perez, Cole Hamels, and some solid youngsters in Chi Chi Gonzalez and Nick Martinez. Add to that mix one Yu Darvish, who will come back at about mid-May, and that's one heck of a rotation on paper that has proven post-season success. The lineup still appears to be solid, with Delino DeShields proving to be a solid leadoff man, Prince Fielder returning to past performance, Adrian Beltre still being a solid run producer, Rougned Odor being an absolute spark plug, and some strong prospects like Joey Gallo, Nomar Mazara and the returning Jurickson Profar waiting in the wings, the team has pieces. Will they put them together is anyone's guess, as baseball can be very difficult to predict, but they have a chance to make a deep run next year.<br />
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As these brief analyses highlight, my teams have been a mixed bag of successes and failures in the last couple of months. This brings me back to my original point: it is wonderful to have a diverse portfolio, even in one's sports fandom. Despite the Longhorns breaking my heart or the Cowboys putting on woeful displays of football, I still have my Spurs games to look forward to; I have the growth of the Longhorn basketball team to see; I have the spring training and the MLB season to look forward to with the Rangers. It's more likely than not that at least one team will be relatively successful, which leads to better chances of sports satisfaction, with better stories to tell and more drama to be had.<br />
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As a sports fan, I'm so glad that my eggs aren't all in one basket. HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-35917683793018007352015-06-28T21:26:00.000-07:002015-06-28T21:26:02.768-07:00Stuck in the MiddleHello there!<br />
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It's been awhile, hasn't it? How are you doing? Really? That's awesome! Me?<br />
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I'm...doing great! Just wonderful.<br />
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It's kind of funny how we can convey what we truly mean with the pauses between the words rather than the words themselves.<br />
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The truth is, I'm not doing great. That's not to say that I'm miserable (though that's what we often interpret that statement to mean); it just means that I'm not the personification of fucking sunbeams. I'm in the middle, which I suppose sounds odd, because we are conditioned to try to put any answer to that question into one of two categories, even though nothing is ever that simple.<br />
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So what is it that's making my answer to such a simple question so complicated? Well, the reason is perhaps best expressed through an adversarial relationship, namely the professional self vs. the personal self.<br />
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If I view my current situation through that lens, it becomes easy to explain why I feel so mediocrely; my professional self is completely dominating my most finite resource: my time. It's eating so much time that the crumbs falling from the table to where my personal self is chained and scrounging for any morsel are wholly unsatisfying. It's almost like a Ramsay-Reek relationship (for my buddies who are fellow consumers of either/both A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones).<br />
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The odd part of this picture, though, is that my job is actually pretty awesome, both in theory and in practice. I believe very strongly in both the mission and the principles of my organization as the best way to help as many people as possible and as a basically good philosophy. Add to that the fact that following that mission and those principles have led to some truly memorable experiences.<br />
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For one example, during the Memorial Day weekend, central Texas (specifically about an hour north of San Antonio) got absolutely deluged by two separate waves of extremely heavy thunderstorms dropping about a foot of rain an hour. Yes, a foot. This led to the worst flooding for the area in recorded history, and led to many shelters being opened. For one of the said shelters, I and one of our volunteers were tasked with delivering supplies there at 2 AM-in between the waves. This process included hooking up a two-ton trailer to a one-and-a-half-ton pickup, hauling said trailer to a town in which neither of us had ever been to an hour-and-a-half away in the middle of a rainy night.<br />
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Now, for those who know me, it will come as no surprise that I had never done any of these things before. It may come as a surprise, however, that my volunteer partner (who, coincidentally, is also a pale, blond-haired, blue-eyed fantasy and metal-loving religious scholar) was even less experienced in this realm than me. So, in essence, the folks in this shelter were depending upon the handiness of two skinny, nerdy academics who barely know the difference between a hammer and a nail gun. Fucking. Perfect.<br />
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So after we fumbled in the dark and the rain for about fifteen minutes backing the not-powerful-enough truck so that we could hook up the too-heavy trailer, we started chugging down the road and got onto the highway pushing the petal to the metal to go a blistering fifty miles an hour. After about twenty minutes of snail-like driving, the already wobbly ride started to violently shudder it's way forward. After a brief inspection on the shoulder, us two academics couldn't discern what caused the problem, so we resolved to continue, driving even more slowly and carefully (from snail-like down to 1950s English Christian motorist-esque) with flashers on at all times.<br />
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As if this ride didn't already have enough troubles, I received a call a little further down the road to inform us that the southern part of this town we were going to was completely flooded and thus, impossible to traverse. Great. So now we had to circle around, using completely darkened country back roads to get to an alien town neither of us had been to. This effectively doubled our time on the road while we were already exhausted. That said, our ride was relatively smooth for a good portion (about halfway?) of this detour.<br />
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Then the second wave of thunderstorms hit.<br />
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As an aside, for those who don't know or haven't experienced driving in storms that rain that heavily, I'll try to explain what it's like. The best visual analogy that I can make is when the water is pored onto the windshield at an automated car wash; you can't see anything through the windshield. Driving through those thunderstorms was like being in a car wash, except you're moving and the water doesn't fall off because it's constantly falling. Perhaps more jarring than that, though, was the sound of the rain. When you drive through storms like that, the rain doesn't sound like white noise, where you can hear the sound of each individual droplet hitting the ground; the sound is much more akin to a solid thud. Thud. Thud. Almost like a bucket of water being thrown at the car, but even more so due to the rain falling from the fucking sky and having gravity accelerate it for quite a ways.<br />
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Now imagine all of that previous paragraph and add to it the facts that we were chugging in our too-weak truck (made worse earlier on the highway), on unlit roads neither of us knew with low water crossings being completely rushed over by creeks-turned-Rapids, and you have an idea of what we faced.<br />
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Yet we persisted. We pressed forward because we knew that that shelter needed our supplies. So we gamely continued our quest to the shelter location, and, by about 4:30 AM, we were rewarded.<br />
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We had arrived at our destination.<br />
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As we pulled up, stopped, and started to unpack the trailer (with considerable help from the shelter residents themselves-easily numbering a hundred), one of the police officers securing the place motioned towards me.<br />
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"I want to show you something," he said.<br />
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We walked around our now empty trailer and he pointed towards one of the wheels. "You're tire is shredded."<br />
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Sure enough, the tire was completely gone. Neither my partner on this trip nor I had caught it at the time, but we agreed that that must've been the culprit for the violently shuddering that the truck had been doing since we were on the highway hours before. So we drove nearly two-and-a-half hours on a rim through all of that bullshit. Needless to say, we were shocked and relieved. We then left the shelter and trailer and finally got back to San Antonio by 7 AM.<br />
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That was an experience that I really wouldn't have been able to have if I was in a more normal line of work. I felt proud of what we did. I felt brave for what we were willing to face. I felt like we were goddamn heroes that morning. And that's just one (albeit extremely dramatic) story out of dozens I could tell.<br />
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All that being said, why do I not feel like a million bucks every day? Well, quite frankly, the nature of my job is that I can be called out at any time to help someone in need. With that in mind, it's hard to find time just appease myself. As I have had less and less time for personal joys, I have started to lose them. I don't see movies that often, I haven't gotten a comic book in months, I haven't any of the books I have currently and I haven't gone on any Meetup outings. Hell, I barely pay attention to the music I listen to in the car (as a former college radio co-host/DJ, that's sad). Even my love of sports has started to fade a bit.<br />
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That is how I have come to feel neither terrifically or terribly, but mediocrely; I feel like a hero one moment and a loser the next. That's a hard slog.<br />
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That being said, I think that there is light at the end of this tunnel. Over the past couple of days, probably due to a certain Supreme Court ruling and seeing probably my favorite movie in some time, I have started to draw myself out of some doldrums. More personally, however, I think that I have fallen victim to a false line of thinking about the nature of the relationship between the professional vs. personal selves. It isn't a competition between two separate entities; it's a companionship between two parts of a greater whole, going for the same goal: happiness for the true self. It's not about the two fighting for the most finite of resources-time, it's about the two sharing the time we have, for they both are constant parts of you and I.<br />
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To sum up, my happiness is finding that harmonic convergence of the professional and personal selves, somewhere in the middle.<br />
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Maybe being in the middle is how to feel perfectly after all.<br />
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I'm definitely not there yet. I'm not sure when I'll get there, though a good way to tell will be when you ask me, "How are you?"<br />
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My response will be, "I'm doing great!" with nary a pause.<br />
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It's kind of funny how much you can convey what we mean with the pauses between words...HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-60969724460427163912014-12-09T16:46:00.002-08:002014-12-09T16:46:40.886-08:00Powerful Insight on Race and the Police<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I want everyone to watch this video. Despite the horrible quality, I think that this perfectly encapsulates how many people see that there are different sets of rules for different people, especially with what's occurring recently with how many police incidents.</div>
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That is actor Wendell Pierce: a man from New Orleans who invested in the first downtown grocery store in inner-city New Orleans post-Katrina. Clearly the kind of person who we should aspire to be. And this is how he feels about interactions with police. On top of that, he is hardly the only one who feels that way: I heard a young black teenager who was at a rally over Ferguson speak about being terrified when he saw a cop come down the street because he forgot the key to his house and had to go through the backdoor and his first thought was "this cop is going to shoot me, because I'm trying to get into a white woman's (note: his mother's) house." <br />
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As a white man, my first reaction to see police after me isn't fear for my life: it's annoyance. I'm annoyed that a cop is trying to enforce some ridiculous and silly traffic law. Never does fear for my life enter the equation. Why? Cause I'm white, and I know that this sort of violence is not even on the table. That just isn't true if you're a minority in this country.<br />
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This is what people are talking about when they say "white privilege". Not that white people don't work hard to get where they are and don't struggle in any way: we all know that life is a struggle in and of itself. What "white privilege" means is that there are difficulties that I, as a white person, don't have to consider because they won't affect me directly, due to no other reason then the fact that I am as white as snow.<br />
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And, unfortunately, that exists. To deny that is to deny the obvious truth.HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-12755916183969951792014-10-19T22:53:00.000-07:002014-10-19T22:53:03.914-07:00Why "The Legend of Zelda" is Flippin' AwesomeAlright guys, as I've said before (and as those who know me can attest to), I am a very passionate person. There are, of course, two sides to this coin: it can sometimes lead me to feeling some strong frustrations with certain aspects of life that leave me feeling annoyed and deflated. However, on the flip side, that same passion can lead me to feeling buoyed and excited as well.<br />
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I feel like talking about one item that fits into the latter category.<br />
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As a child of the nineties and into the 2000s, video games have been a constant presence in my life. Many of my very early memories revolve around watching someone playing some sort of brightly colored simulation on a TV screen. For instance, I remember being at some kid's house and watching him turn on the TV and turning on this large black box with a smaller black box on top of it. Just a second later, the screen turns white, a blue blur comes across the screen twice and a chorus of voices cry "SE-GA!" The funny thing about that memory is that I don't remember who the kid was or why I was there, but I surely remember the first time I laid eyes upon "Sonic the Hedgehog".<br />
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"Sonic" was my first video game impression, "Mortal Kombat" was my entry into enjoying playing games, and "Pokemon" marked the point where I found out how addictive gaming could be (for better or worse). However, I think that the first game series that brought me to the point where I would consider myself a gamer: someone who truly loved video games as much as any other form of entertainment/art was "The Legend of Zelda".<br />
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The vast majority of these origin of love stories begin with watching someone else take part in the subject of the tale, and "Zelda" is no exception. When I was a but a wee young Brendan Toungate at about seven or eight years old, I would spend weekends with my mom and stepdad at their house. Across the street, lived a family named the Woolnoughs, whom had three sons all about my age. Of course, being four boys ranging in age from twelve to seven without a ton of others our age around and nothing to compete for, we hit it off quite famously almost immediately. We would hang out together and play all sorts of things both outside where we would adventure all around our neighborhood and perform heroic deeds against imaginary foes at the Dell HQ construction site, and inside with many toys and, certainly, video games. Unfortunately, many of the games that they had were single- or two-player only, so someone was always left out. As one might imagine, this led to my boredom if I wasn't playing.<br />
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Except for one time, when I came over and I saw the middle brother playing a game I had never heard of or seen before. When I asked what the game was called, he responded with: "Zelda: Ocarina of Time". As a kid who grew up interested in video games, I had heard of Zelda before, but never had seen-let alone played-one before, so I was intrigued. How could I not be? He was playing as a young boy fighting off giant spiders with skulls on their bodies and opening chests with lights coming from them inside of what must be a four-story tall tree. That was the perfect formula for pre-teen Brendan! So I stayed awhile and I watched. And I was hooked on it. Not playing it: WATCHING it. I watched them (as they took turns) play, not anxiously awaiting my turn with the controller, but wanting to see what would come next: a fiery volcano, a giant fish, some time travel; I watched it all, completely enthralled. Hell, I even refused the controller when they offered it to me, as I didn't want to break my immersion into the game...as an observer. I hung out at their house for hours at a time (when I could) for about a month that summer, just watching the game and, though I missed some of the bigger bits-the final boss battle, for one-I saw the game from beginning to end. And I was sad when it ended, because I wanted MORE.<br />
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Well ask and he shall receive: I had my own Nintendo 64, and eventually came to have access to my own copy of the game (I can't remember if one of my parents bought it for me, or if I borrowed it, but no matter). I immediately dived right into the game, sword slashing and treasure hunting and puzzle solving and adventuring all through Hyrule. For a good two months (school had started again), I played that game whenever I could. My entire life was wrapped around it, with my dad watching all the way, as he became, hilariously, intrigued by the game just as I had been. After finally beating the game on my own (with both my dad and myself celebrating), I felt such a surge of contentedness that can only come from a strong sense of achievement from completing a nigh-perfect piece gaming software. And yet, I was still not satisfied: I still wanted MORE.<br />
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So my family obliged and I got more, either through gifts or allowance money. "Oracle of Ages", "A Link to the Past", "Legend of Zelda", "Zelda 2", "WindWaker", "Minish Cap", "Twilight Princess" and "Phantom Hourglass" are all games that I have owned at some point in my life and I have played to completion or at least through a few dungeons. Many of these games have given me the exact same feeling that "Ocarina of Time" did: enjoyment and contentedness on a grand scale. Every game bringing that utter childlike thrill of adventure and fulfilling my childhood dream of being a great hero.<br />
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And that's why "Zelda" is flippin' awesome. Every time I put in one of its games and start to play it, I get that sense of wonder and joy that I got when I first watched my friends play it so many years ago, even if its a game that I have already beaten. I last played through "Ocarina" my senior year at Cornell; I last played through "A Link to the Past" a year ago in Harlingen; I've beaten "Minish Cap" at least three times and literally every time I have turned any of them on, I'm immediately taken back to what it feels like to be enthralled by a magical world and taking part in it: to feel like a hero.<br />
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If I'm lucky enough to live into old age, I really hope that I'll get the chance to play these games at my old folks' home with a smile on my face and everyone else sitting on the couches watching, all of us enthralled once again in an adventure bigger than anything else in the world.<br />
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That would also be pretty flippin' awesome.HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-35988221719661584962014-10-04T22:00:00.001-07:002014-10-04T22:00:17.347-07:00The Quest Continues...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I have been on a secret quest for a large portion of my life.<br /><br />When I first heard of the beautiful blue wonderland of fun as a kid, I was about 7 years old, when all of the kids were talking about some of their favorite things in the world. It was almost only mentioned in hushed tones, for fear of reprimand of the teachers, for you see: unless they were careful about whispering, they couldn't help but raise their voices to the heavens in praise of its glory. For years, I had believed that it's existence was a myth, for there is no way that something so awesome and fantastic could truly exist. That was, until I saw a kid with it and I knew immediately that I had to get my hands on it as well.<br /><br />Unfortunately, that particular kid took great pleasure at seeing my longing face and spitting in it (metaphorically, of course), which fed my desire and turned that eventually into jealousy. That jealousy has been so strong that it has carried over even to the present day whenever I hear one of my peers talk about how much fun they had with it.<br /><br />Ever since that day, I have been on high alert in trying to find a way to immerse myself into the glory that so many of my peers had enjoyed. I have been looking for artifacts from before my birth in order to satiate my hunger for this experience. I have looked into the deep jungles of classic stores and internet auction sites. I have sailed the seven seas and delved into the deepest jungles of the four corners of the electronic world to find it. Unfortunately, I have not been able to fully partake in this journey, due to the everyday concerns of life getting in my way.<br /><br />Recently, I had found some free time however: enough to resume my search. This gnawing frustration only made more painful by looking up YouTube videos of others who have had the moments which I had sought for so long.<br /><br />Then finally, earlier this morning, I had it cornered. Using one of the most ancient devices I had ever had at my disposal, I found a website where I could finally truly have my turn at experiencing the greatness...only to have my search prove fruitless once again by the fact that my device simply could not provide me the capability to actually take part.<br /><br />So close I was! So close! I will now have to wait again until I can resume my quest with the capability of finally enjoying what's behind this curtain:</div>
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MEGA MAN II! I WILL FIND YOU!!!</div>
<br />HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-66948741662205438932014-09-07T21:20:00.001-07:002014-09-07T21:20:11.234-07:00Adventure and Self-DiscoveryI'm generally known amongst people whom I interact with regularly as a person who talks a lot. A lot. That would indicate that I like to spend a lot of my time with and around others. This indication would be accurate.<br /><br />But, every once in a while, I really enjoy having an adventure all on my own. It's nice to spend some time with my own thoughts and doing things that I want to do without having to worry about if anyone else is having a good time.<br /><br />Yesterday was a prime example.<br /><br />After having been working in Boston suburbs for two weeks with only one chance to go into Boston proper before Saturday, I, naturally, had a huge desire to go into town and do some of the things that I did not have a chance to do previously. The main thing on that list being exploring the city itself in more detail and getting a look at some of the beautiful parks and even better architecture. I had been looking forward to having a day in the city for the entire second week of work. Then, on Friday, it was brought to my attention that there were Red Sox tickets available for the following evening's game, which was, conveniently, the day that many of my teammates were also heading into Boston. <br /><br />If you came to the conclusion that I indeed bought a ticket to see the Red Sox in Fenway, congratulations: you know me fairly well! As a result of that, my Saturday was looking like it was going to be a lot of fun!<br /><br />Long story short, my day lived up to the expectations and then some.<br /><br />I went to the only Curious George shop in the world and bought three books for my two youngest nephews and my brand new niece (whom I can't wait to meet!). I went to the Boston Public Library, which was spoken of as an absolutely beautiful entity, and it definitely lived up to that; how many public libraries can you think of that have outdoor courtyards with bronze statue fountains in the outdoor courtyard? I wouldn't have even thought to think of that before seeing the BPL. I walked around the city taking in some truly gorgeous scenery: the river reflecting the sunlight; the beautiful stone church built in 1665 with ivy growing up the steeple; the gorgeous park with the heart-warming dedication on a bench; the immense, snow-white swans in the Boston Public Garden; the lovely spot under a tree where I took a quick catnap; that beautiful meeting of green, red and white that only a well-manicured baseball field can provide; and finally, the gigantic karaoke session with a cute little Neil Diamond ditty about a girl named Caroline with thousands of Red Sox fans.<br /><br />Now, I could go on for hours about how awesome each one of those experiences were (and I have), but those experiences weren't even the best part of my day, as hard as that can be to believe. No, the best part of that day was that I was alone.<br /><br />Yes, alone. It was just such a sheer joy to be among all of these beautiful sites and have the freedom to enjoy them purely on my own terms. I didn't have to worry about creating conversation with someone if I didn't feel like doing so. I didn't have to worry about someone else having a good time. If something was boring me, I needn't try to make my case for moving on to a companion; I could just leave and go to the next metaphorically shiny object. Most importantly, throughout my adventure, I never felt lonely. Even when the people sitting around me left part way through the game and I was the only one in my row. Even when groups of people were having quite loud, lovely conversations and enjoying one another's company to remind me that I was alone. Nothing fazed me at all. Why? Because of one very important thing: I was enough.<br /><br />I interested myself to the point where I wasn't looking around for someone else to make my day a good one; my own company was awesome enough to keep my enjoyment of the day at a premium. <br /><br />Now, there was a slight exception to this in that I really do wish that some folks were with me to take in the Red Sox game. Hell, I spent a good portion of the game sending and reading text messages with others. However (and here's the kicker), I WANTED them to be there; I did not NEED them to be there. I had an utterly fantastic time at the game and throughout the day without having anybody I know around me.<br /><br />Because I love myself.<br /><br />And that beats crossing off any bucket list item. <br />
<br />HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-90345944442750080282014-07-21T21:56:00.001-07:002014-07-21T21:56:17.055-07:00Hodgepodge of PotpurriWow, it's been awhile since my last writing sample! Life got a touch crazy with travel and whatnot.<br />
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Let me just go over a few things that have happened in the few weeks since I last posted.<br />
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That World Cup thing happened! I would like to say that this World Cup was absolutely, brilliantly entertaining. There are a few different things about the tournament that stood out: the improvement of U.S. Soccer; the dominance of Germany; and the beauty and drama of the games in general.<br />
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I was honestly very impressed with how well the U.S. team performed in Brazil. There were a couple of negative spots, like Michael Bradley forgetting what team he played for, the final play of the Portugal game, and the two goals given up to Belgium in added time that ended up taking the U.S. out of the tournament. That being said, there were the great moments too: Dempsey's goal in the first minute and Brooks's winner off of Zusi's perfect corner against Ghana; Jones's amazing shot from distance and the team's overall play against Portugal; and the team's near victory on Wondolowski's near finisher against Belgium to move on. Now, being knocked out in the round of sixteen isn't the best finish that *begin English accent* our nation's best footballers *end English accent* have ever secured. However, the quality of play from our team and the quality of the opponents that they faced indicates that our country has never been closer to becoming a dangerous soccer team on the world stage. Think about it: the team's first loss in the tournament was 1-0 to the eventual champion (who happened to destroy Brazil in their home country on the way). Not too shabby.<br />
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Speaking of Germany, weren't they awesome or what? Their passes were on point, their ideas creative, their plays were quick in being created and their players were even quicker in executing them. Their team was so much fun to watch: whether it was Mueller scoring from distance, Schweinsteiger connecting the dots in the midfield or Schuelle making deep runs to the goal, there was always some fantastic play that was about to be made. Such a treat to watch them. PS: I would be willing to bet my car that there will be a large amount of children named Mario born nine months from now in Germany.<br />
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Finally, how good was that tournament in general? So many great passes, goals, saves, tackles and runs. I am not usually a fan of soccer all that much, and I couldn't help myself; I was excited for every match and every play. I never thought that that would happen. It got to the point that I even forgot that baseball has been going on. Now, I love baseball; that shows how powerful the allure of the World Cup is. This time though, I'm actually interested in following the sport outside of that one special month. I actually found myself wanting to watch MLS games on TV, when I've never cared before. How awesome!<br />
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What else has happened in sports. Hmmm, oh yeah; that one basketball player went back to his old team! True enough, LeBron James is again a Cleveland Cavalier. When I first heard about it, I wanted to believe him when he wrote that he wanted to go back in order to build something in Cleveland and that he was there for the long haul. However, it seems as though his contract is only for 3 years and there have been reports that he's trying to force Cavs management to trade for Kevin Love. This seems to me that he's just as fickle as he's ever been and the length of the contract is a hedge of his bet in case that the Cavs aren't on an upward trajectory in a couple of years. If they aren't as close as he'd like at the end of those years, how much would you like to bet that he's gone again? And the crazy thing is, he's kind of an author of his own failure (at least in Cleveland). He wants to have control over player decisions like he did last time, when it worked SO well. The guy is not a great judge of talent, if the reports that he wants Love on his team are true. Love is a guy who has great stats but can't play a lick of defense and has never shown a shred of mental toughness on the NBA level. For all of his points and rebounds, you'd think that he'd have a greater impact on his team, but he doesn't seem to have any impact in the win-loss record. However, even more importantly, the only time that James has had championship-level success in the NBA was when he played for a team that knew what they were doing in crafting a roster and had the force of personality to put their machinations through over James's objections. So now he thinks that he knows better than fellow basketball lifers who have had more than twice his years of experience in talent evaluation? He's going to shoot himself in there foot.<br />
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Now for a more personal (and happy) note to end this post on. During my time in this AmeriCorps program, I have read for pleasure far more often than at any point since I was a very small child. Since March, I've read three novels ("A Dance With Dragons"...again, "The King of Torts", and "The Riddle of the Sands") and I'm nearly finished with "The Great American Detective" which is a compilation of detective short stories ranging in time period from the 1890s to the 1970s. Reading so much for pleasure has led to my mind feeling more active and thusly more lithe. Not only have I really enjoyed my time reading, but I feel more mentally engaged and healthy. Not to mention that the the books that I've been reading have been frickin' awesome (especially this last one; I'll be giving a more thorough review of it next entry).<br />
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That's all for now; I'm going to try to be more regular with my posts from here on out, which will force me to be creative and thus keep me mentally exercising. Giving your brain a workout once in a while never hurt anyone, after all!HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-22357758471151832072014-06-22T19:58:00.001-07:002014-06-22T19:58:09.330-07:00Can Sports Be Art?Man, it has been a week and it still hasn't gotten anywhere near old to hear...<br />
<br />
The San Antonio Spurs are 2014 NBA Champions.<br />
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Even saying the words makes me excited!<br />
<br />
However, this most recent moment of glory is not what I'm going to dedicate this blog post to; there have been thousands upon thousands of words, both spoken and written, about that.<br />
<br />
With this space, I want to ask a question: can sports become art? And if so, at what point does that happen?<br />
<br />
To begin this discussion, I suppose that I have to find a good definition of art. To that end, here is what oxforddictionaries.com has to say about it:<br />
<br />
"Art: The expression of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power."<br />
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Now let's break it down and see if sports can fit in those specifications.<br />
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Are sports an expression of human creative skill and imagination? I would say, at their highest levels, yes. Unequivocally yes. Anybody that has been watching some of the goals scored in this most recent World Cup would agree with that. I would add, on top of that, the design of football offensive plays and defensive formations display a huge amount of creative imagination in order to bring the team's strengths to the forefront and to hide their deficiencies. One more great example of this are the 2014 Spurs with their passing the ball in order to look for the best possible shot or creative moves to the basket.<br />
<br />
Now, sports obviously are not paintings or sculptures, but they don't have to be in order to be considered art according the above definition. Therefore, I won't sweat that point too much. After all, there are many movies out there that have been considered art and they aren't paintings or sculptures either.<br />
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The third point is the hardest to pin down in general. Are sports appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power? For me anyway, I do not appreciate sports primarily for their emotional power. If I want to watch something for its emotional power, I would choose "Inherit The Wind" over the Super Bowl (although the World Series does come close). Their beauty though? I think that this can be debated. I will admit that sports don't immediately come to my mind when I think of the word "beauty" or "beautiful"; that distinction I usually reserve for impressive, natural vistas or a lovely member of the opposite sex. That being said, I believe that there is something beautiful about competition at the highest level, where both competitors are going to give their all for pride. Kind of like a samurai standoff right before the duel to the death. Also, I have heard even non-sports fans marvel at the beauty of a fantastic soccer goal. Or at watching Michael Jordan play basketball in his prime. Or the 2014 Spurs.<br />
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So that's two for two as far as points in the definition that apply. Going by sheer numbers, sports would seem to qualify as art.<br />
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That being said, almost no one uses dictionary definitions when trying to decide what is art and what isn't. Art is a truly difficult thing to quantify, after all. In my opinion though, after looking at this definition, I can't come up with an argument that sports aren't art that is better than the argument that I just gave in favor of the distinction of art being given to sports.<br />
<br />
Now to the second (and perhaps more interesting question), at what point do sports become art?<br />
<br />
I must admit, this is the more interesting question to me. The first question might be more vital to the discussion, but the second one is the most fun. Sports fans always like to debate: who's the best player ever, what's the best team ever, but the most fun debates that we have are truly about moments. Moments where the game hangs in the balance and one team makes a play (or sometimes, a series of plays) where they separate themselves. Those moments are the reasons why we are all fans. There are so many moments in sports history: The Play (Cal vs. Stanford), Vince Young's drive, The Catch (Dwight Clark), The Immaculate Reception (Franco Harris), Kirk Gibson's home run, Aaron Bleepin' Boone, Boston's 2004 comeback, Michael Jordan's 1998 shot, Bird's steal, Magic's baby hook.<br />
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All of those, I believe, are of small periods where sports became art. Where time seemed to stand still and we realized that what we just witnessed was pure and good (unless your team was on the losing side) and everything right about the world. Where everything became beautiful.<br />
<br />
However, I do not believe that those are the only instances of sports transcending their traditional boundaries of entertainment and becoming truly artistic. I believe that there are times where one team can master their sport so well that it becomes inherently beautiful to witness their existence. The moments where they fail to achieve artistic status are actually few and far between.<br />
<br />
Enter, the 2014 San Antonio Spurs.<br />
<br />
These Spurs have achieved a quality of play that would rival any master at their chosen craft in history. These Spurs are to basketball what Beethoven was to music, what da Vinci was to oil and canvas, what Shakespeare was to the English language. Every time I watched these Spurs play, I knew that there was the possibility that my breath would be taken away, not through individual brilliance or through incredible athleticism, but through sheer intelligence, creative expression, and an inherit understanding of what makes team sports in general, and basketball in particular, so wonderful. No one cared about who got the stats, who got the glory, or who got the headlines. No one even cared that they were playing basketball in a way that would make Dean Smith tear up in joy. All they cared about was winning, and there was only one way in which they could do that: with the dedication to craft and the subtle strokes that only an artistic master could have. It's not just that they're unselfish; after all, any team can pass the ball. It's not just that they're intelligent; a lot of teams have smart players. And it's not just that they're creative; a lot of teams have players and coaches with creative ideas. It's that they linked all three of these qualities together in such a way that they were, somehow, even greater than the sum of those parts. Watching these Spurs, pass, cut, shoot, rebound, defend and hustle created in me a purity of experience that rivals seeing Macbeth live by the Actors of the London Stage and listening to The Who's "Quadrophenia" all the way through.<br />
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Watching these Spurs (especially in the Finals) made me realize that not only were sports capable of being art, but that they're capable of being <b>high art</b>.<br />
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And it has been pure unadulterated joy to watch them.<br />
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PS: If you would like to see another opinion somewhat on this subject that is honestly an even better expression of this point, than I urge you to watch these two videos:<br />
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San Antonio Spurs: "The Beautiful Game"<br />
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San Antonio Spurs: "The Beautiful Game" Finals Edition<br />
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I would love to hear anyone else's opinions as well, so please watch them! They're awesome!HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-88908878836949225172014-06-05T19:38:00.000-07:002014-06-05T19:38:52.556-07:00Inspiring Event of Awesomeness!I witnessed a truly awesome event earlier this week that left me quite inspired and joyful.<br />
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Those who know me well might think that I might be referring to my favorite team, the San Antonio Spurs making the Finals after last year's heartbreak. While that is indeed quite inspiring, that is not what I'm referring (that will get a post later).<br />
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Instead, I'm talking about the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.<br />
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*cue derisive snorts*<br />
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I'll wait.<br />
<br />
*end derisive snorts*<br />
<br />
Thank you.<br />
<br />
I know that the notion of the existence of a rock music hall of fame is ludicrous to some (and I am not sure that I disagree with that at all), and a museum exhibit cannot measure up to a musical group's impact, even when they aren't especially well-known. For example, the influence of bands like the Yardbirds or Sonic Youth is absolutely tremendous and certainly felt throughout the world through other bands that emulated their styles. So, given all of those reasons, one could make a very strong case that the entire existence of the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame is superfluous at best and a ridiculous exercise at worst.<br />
<br />
I could not care less about any of that. The reason? It's just so cool to see the love and care that goes into each induction speech performed either by a contemporary or a fan (speech highlights are Tom Morello inducting KISS, Art Garfunkel inducting Cat Stevens and Bruce Springsteen inducting his own E Street Band). Each speech was done so well, that for a second, I believed that each act was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Even Hall & Oates. And if that wasn't enough, the performances also did a hell of a job in formulating a convincing argument of that very same point.<br />
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Speaking of the performances, they were all pretty cool, though the coolest ones were the two tribute performances by artists that were influenced by the inductee, of which there were two: Linda Ronstadt and Nirvana.<br />
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Now, I figured that the Nirvana tribute would affect me positively; after all, how could it not? Some of my first memories dealing with music are hearing Nirvana through the walls to my sisters' rooms as a toddler. In some ways, Nirvana's music shaped my taste more than any other band in history. So I was expecting the experience of watching the two surviving members with a rotating cast of frontwomen (which was an interesting choice, but a good one as it turned out) to be a really cool experience, seeing as I don't think that there has ever been any iteration of Nirvana that has played at an age where I could fully appreciate them.<br />
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What was less expected was how cool I found the Linda Ronstadt tribute to be. I will admit that I knew next to nothing of her career when she was one of the choices to be voted in to the hall of fame. I knew that she was a singer, obviously, but I didn't know any songs that could be attributed to her. While watching clips of her performances, I thought to myself: "Ah, a country-rock hybrid: this is ok; not something that I would actively search for, but entertaining enough."<br />
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Then the tribute started.<br />
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First came Carrie Underwood, who is one hell of a powerful singer, whatever my misgivings of her songs in particular are. I'm not a fan, but anybody can see the talent. She did a pretty solid job approximating Ronstadt's power on the mic. Then, Bonnie Raitt and Emmylou Harris joined in and kicked ass with Underwood singing backup. I was starting to like it a bit more. After that, Sheryl Crow came on stage with Raitt, Harris and Glen Frey (who performed the induction) joining Underwood as backup singers. At this point, I was all in on this, cause Sheryl Crow is fucking awesome. Her voice was so strong and so natural; badass and beautiful all in one. I was digging the performance intensely, and just when I didn't think that it would get any better, one miss Stevie Nicks waltzes up on stage, moves Crow to join the ever-expanding chorus, and belts out a tune the way that only Stevie can. Finally, everyone joins in to sing "When Will I Be Loved" (the only Linda Ronstadt song that I immediately recognized). The performance was so strong and so cumulative that I have been inspired to find Linda Ronstadt songs and give them a listen: if she inspired this many great performers, how can I not try her stuff out?<br />
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However, that paled in comparison to what transpired during the Nirvana tribute. Like I said earlier, both Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic decided to be fronted by only women during the tribute, and it was the best possible choice. First up was Joan Jett, performing "Smells Like Teen Spirit". One, I'm a big fan of the song and two, I love Joan Jett so goddamn much: is there anyone alive who personifies rock 'n roll better than her? I think not. All of that being said, it worked as well as I would have ever expected: it was powerful, angry, relieving and friggin' awesome! And they were just getting started: next up was Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth (the godparents of Grunge, so to speak), who screamed out "Aneurysm" with a pure, raw energy that is the very essence of punk and honestly looked and sounded like Kurt Cobain's spirit was being channeled by her. It was poetry in motion. Annie Clark from St. Vincent followed with one hell of a rendition of "Lithium" that was just a joy to listen to. Finally, a most unexpected guest performer came up to perform "All Apologies": one Lorde, who is a brand new pop star best known for her hit song " Royals". Out of all the possible choices to perform that song, a young pop star would not have been the first to come to mind. Granted, Lorde isn't a prototypical teen starlet; her voice and presence is one of poise, not flash. And boy, did that come through in her performance, along with a quiet, controlled anguish that really fit the song. Her performance was the most dissimilar from the original in terms of sound. In terms of the feeling behind the song, though? It was absolutely in line with the other three, and capped off a perfect tribute.<br />
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Perhaps the most impressive thing about the performances was that it made me appreciate Kurt Cobain as a performer and songwriter even more than I already did. Think about this: how large is the the disparity in terms of age and style between Lorde and Joan Jett? Yeah. And both performed songs that fit each of their strengths very well, with Jett's confrontational, don't-give-a-fuck attitude and Lorde's composed rage. Both of those songs are huge parts of Nirvana's song library, and, more to the point, written by Cobain himself. How amazing is that?<br />
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Watching the entire ceremony was a wonderful experience; from Art Garfunkel singing verses from Cat Stevens' songs during his induction speech to the E Street Band finally getting their time in the sun to Courtney Love and Dave Grohl embracing one another on stage to the performances I just spoke of, it was an awesome event to witness and one that was, in many ways, inspiring. It was a privilege to watch, and I hope that everyone who likes music has a chance to watch it as well.<br />
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Whether the Hall matters or not.HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-76725556136620419732014-05-27T20:42:00.000-07:002014-05-27T20:42:51.354-07:00A Tragic Instance of HumanityYet another shooting.<br />
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God. Damn. It.<br />
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In case you have not yet heard, a student at the University of California at Santa Barbara by the name of Elliot Rodger murdered six fellow students before taking his own life. It's a very tragic, horrific, sad instance of human failings leading to the unnecessary deaths of people who were just starting to find their own ways in life.<br />
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However, I want to stress one word from that previous sentence: human.<br />
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I have read so many headlines, news stories, blog posts and comments calling Rodger a killer, a misogynist, a bitch (including one of my own), a coward, and any number of other titles. All of these are either obviously true or could have a compelling case to be accurately attributed to him. However, I am troubled by the fact that the label of human rarely appears in any discussion pertaining to this story; as if by not saying it, we can pretend that he is not one of us, that he is a different species from us. This is a mistake: by pushing him away like that we leave ourselves open to ignoring the fact that the stressors of everyday life are enough to push any one of us over the edge and we miss the signs and symptoms of dangerous thoughts manifesting themselves in our loved ones or ourselves.<br />
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Now, I understand that Rodger was indeed all of those labels that I mentioned earlier. I also understand that the action of pushing him away is a perfectly viable defense mechanism so that we can carry on with what all of us need to do in our own lives (after all, if we couldn't push unfortunate events and stories out of our thoughts, we might not be able to perform basic survival tasks). That being said, do we not have struggles of our own? Our own personal insecurities that we have to face<br />
down every day when we look at ourselves in the mirror? We have to face the very same struggle that Rodger faced.<br />
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In my case, this particular example is especially poignant. Why? Because, as a teenager (and, to a lesser extent, still do), I had some of those same insecurities that Elliot mentioned in his video: when I was in high school, I can't tell you how many hours I spent brooding over my own lack of romantic and sexual success, because I'm honestly not sure that numbers that high exist. I spent more time in my own head than Lou Gehrig spent time playing baseball. All of that focus on my own insecurities and what I deemed to be failings led to be an angry, bitter person who deemed those around to be somehow not as deserving of happiness. I envied the lives of others: I often thought in my more resentful moments "Why not me?" "Why won't any of the girls give a second glance at me?" "Am I that much of a freak?"<br />
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The problem really only got worse as the years went on; my friends would often tell me of the girls that they had had sex with and it became especially irksome when one of my best friends started dating a girl that I had had a crush on for over a year (who, perhaps not coincidentally, was-and still is-a very close friend of mine). My jealousy of my peers coupled with the self-imposed pressure to succeed where so many of my circle had previously succeeded really fed into the internal angst that I was feeling and created a version of myself that was consistently dour, angry and prone to aggressive outbursts. Even more than any of that, I was desperate for attention and clingy. Essentially, I would be clingy and insecure, which led people to be uncomfortable around me, which led to them not wanting to pay me much attention, which fed my insecurities further and made me angrier. Rinse, lather, repeat. What started out as a typical awkward teenager struggling with change and learning how to properly wash hair was spiraling into something that was starting to turn dark.<br />
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I, of course, didn't recognize this while it was happening. Throughout that time, I just thought that that was me. That was who I am, and I shouldn't have to change for anybody. The only thing that brought me out of that cycle was a very personal tragedy that caused me to look at myself, face my own inner demons and misconceptions that I had carried with me my entire adolescence up until that point, and change my outlook accordingly. Looking back, I'm not entirely sure that I would have made those changes without that terrible moment (as sad as that makes me).<br />
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During this reexamination of my life, I determined that I was no longer going to allow how others interacted with me to define myself. Chief amongst these interactions were those that I had with women: I was no longer going to feel like I was unworthy because I hadn't been kissed.<br />
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What that took, though, was me creating my own personal definition of what a man was. You see, I thought that one of the main checkpoints on the path to manhood was losing one's virginity. We hear/see it all the time on TV and in movies: "She'll make you a man yet." "You're a man now, son." "It's hard to explain to you boys who haven't had sex yet." (don't get me wrong: I'm not blaming pop culture on my flawed definition of manhood; media is a reflection of the culture, not the creator of it). Ultimately, what that meant was that my manhood (and thus, my self-esteem and my confidence in my own viability in life), was in the hands of other people and not myself. That is a disconcerting thought; one that would make any teenage boy afraid. And, in the great words of Yoda: "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."<br />
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Now, not knowing him personally, I can't speak as to what Elliot Rodger was contemplating, and I am definitely not a professional psychiatrist. Speaking as someone who can honestly say that they went through similar emotions during a similar time in life, though, it seems to me that he let his own insecurities define who he was as a person. He lost his struggle with his inner demons and he let them become him, which drove him to commit his final, heinous act.<br />
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And that is a human tragedy that is as old as the human race itself.<br />
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That is why it is so important to remember that Elliot Rodger was, first and foremost, a human being. Just as anyone of us could be the victim of an attack, any one of us (if we lose the struggle against our insecurities and misconceptions) could be the perpetrator as well.<br />
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I urge any one and everyone-whether you read this blog post or not-to face their insecurities head-on and find a way to defeat them. It isn't easy and it isn't comfortable, but it is necessary, and doing the necessary things despite the hardships are a huge part of what turns a child into an adult. A girl into a woman.<br />
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Or a boy into a man.HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7588775725194806173.post-38922551395948138052014-05-18T15:50:00.001-07:002014-05-18T15:50:42.013-07:00Quite The QuandrySo here we are.<br />
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Over the past few months, I have been kicking around the idea of starting a blog around my brain. The motivation to create one over this particular amount of time was wrought due to a confluence of events and realities that pushed me toward this one particular activity:<br />
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1. My admission into a new AmeriCorps program. If I was to start writing, I wanted to have something interesting to potentially write about and I figured that this service opportunity in which I would go to different parts of the country could provide some interesting prompts to go off of;<br />
2. A lack of any solid schedule in any one community. Due to the nature of emergency management work, my team and I can be called to go anywhere at any time. If the country needs us to assist with a disaster, we have to be available to go. This circumstance creates a lack of knowledge of where or when I would be going next, which therefore precludes me from being able to commit to any community events that would otherwise occupy my time; and<br />
3. A lack of funds to buy the equipment necessary to take part in other activities that I have an interest in. I can't really afford to spend money on sports gear; video games and consoles; or cameras and editing software.<br />
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Thusly, creating a blog and writing for it was the natural-and, in some ways, the only-choice.<br />
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But what to write about? Those who know me know that I have a great deal many interests and that I tend to be rather opinionated about all of them. These interests include, but are not limited to: sports, music, movies, TV shows, live theater, video games, internet videos, food, books, comics, politics, religious discussions, chess, obscure references, the number 42, and that one episode of Pokemon with Clefairy in it.<br />
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Having so many interests is oftentimes a good thing (it is difficult for me to be completely bored, which is pretty nice). However, there are times when it backfires. For example, there are times where I get too involved with a discussion about a particular topic and I start to annoy the people with whom I'm discussing my point due to me not being able to shut up and them not being in the mood to deal with it.* On top of that, having so many varied interests can also lead to indecision: paralysis via over-analysis, or, as I prefer to think about it:<br />
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"Sittin' in the front seat</div>
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Kickin' in the back seat</div>
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Gotta make my mind up;</div>
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Which seat can I take?"</div>
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-Unknown**</div>
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After contemplating this quandary off and on for a little while (living and working in DC with a bunch of other people your age does create distractions, after all), it struck me that all of these different topics were not truly different at all: they are my passions, and creating discussions around those passions is my number one hobby. And writing about my favorite hobby once or twice a week is a petty solid foundation for a blog.</div>
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So here we are.</div>
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I hope that you enjoy it as much as I will!</div>
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*This leads to another reason to start this blog:<br />
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5. The ability to get my full opinions out there without my friends becoming frustrated and telling me to stuff it.<br />
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**True quote source is Rebecca Black, in case you have lived under a Siberian rock so long that you think that it's still the USSR and you were cryogenically frozen only to be woken up for top secret assassination missions.<br />
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<br />HobbyistObservationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03861127756399980502noreply@blogger.com3