Gism Butter

Thu, 30 Dec 2004

Tsunami

The Tsunami really served to put everything in perspective for me. And I do mean everything. Not only have millions of lives been unalterably changed, but the true colors fo the American media has been revealed. As Americans donate money and send supplies, the media increasingly relegates the story to the bottom rungs of coverage. Sure, they spend a good amount of time on it, but the methods they use to cover it, and the stories they report just feel like they're missing the point.

The first big story was Hans, the two-year-old blond child from Sweden. While this lost child was certainly a tragedy, I couldn't help but wonder why the only kid on the nightly news that they're speeaking of is a blondhaired blue eyed European. Sri Lanka was the hardest hit nation of all those involved, and yet most of the reporters and news organizations are covering Thailand. Some of this coverage is pure hapenstance: Kevin Sites, the famous Iraq corespondant, just happened to be in Thailand during the tsunami, and thus, the NBC corespondant was able to cover the Thailand aspects of the story. But I have yet to see any news reports from Sri Lanka. Perhaps this is purely a factor of the difficulties involved with getting to the island. Perhaps it is because there were no tourist journalists there during the event. Perhaps it's because no one gives a rats ass about this tiny nation filled with small brown people.

Perhaps I'm bitching prematurely, but I've just had an immense urge to get over there and do anything I can to interview locals. All the coverage on TV involves interviewing white people at airports. There aren't even any heart sob stories about the local women crying over dead children with translations provided in subtitles. Sure, that would be exploitative journalism, but at least it owuld be exploitative of the people who live there rather than exploitative of the folks who could afford multi-thousand-dollar plane tickets and hotel reservations. A week earlier, these vacationers were dropping dimes on the platters of local bell hops, not paying any mind to the simple lives and difficult existences they live. Now, they're relying on the good will of these kind and generous people, who likely give their last crusts of bread to the pale Europeans who are stranded in these oceanside nations.

Maybe I'm not watching the correct news. My folks have cable, so I'm ingesting CNN, Fox, and even BBC World. I have yet to listen to NPR or the News Hour. I hope those stations are doing a better job. I, for one, don't care how many Americans died out of the 100,000+ dead. I do care how many dead are from each respective nation, and thus, were these broadcasts to break down the numbers by nations overall, I would be interested in the dead Americans. But only if the numbers were given as a whole pie.

Hopefully, there are some journalists out there right now in the real nitty gritty preparing the truthful stories, instead of waiting around LAX with a microphone and camera for the next flight out of Bangkok to come into the terminal. Hopefully, there are some translators still alive to communicate the grief and harrowing stories of the tribal folk who were not lucky enough too have hotel balconies to hold onto.

It's also a sad state of affairs to see how many public and corporate donations are coming in, compared to the amount our own government has contributed. People all over the world are giving with absolutely no reserve, and out government is hamstrung because the Bush-weasel has been deficit spending us into a hole. There's no money left for relief aid, and there's no military left to help those poor people.

Wed, 22 Dec 2004

Futurama

I'm in a weird place right now. On the verge of going home, saddled with depression and ennui, and every day I'm looking around... oooohhhh..... six billion people around the world whose lives are significantly worse and less privlidged than mine.

Why do we whine so much, us top 5% of the world? Or is it just that the little guys can't blog or broadcast their complaints to the rest of us? I should not be upset, since I have plenty to eat, plenty to drink, plenty to wear, and plenty to type.

The world moves on, but the web doesn't seem to change much anymore. Perhaps I need to take some time off from the Internet. I feel... icky about using it now-a-days.

I've been playing a lot of Anarchy Online, and boy, does it suck. But I can't stop playing it. It's free, and it's also riddled with poor design choices... You can understand my dilema. Boy, is it boring, and long winded, and difficult, and repretative, and not really much of a game, and ugly, and slow... Oy. But I think I'm gonna go play some more.

Sat, 18 Dec 2004

Star Trek

God, I love Star Trek. Such a great show. I speak mainly of the Next generation, but Deep Space Nine was great too. Call me a heathen, but I'll take Cisco as my captain over Kirk, Janeway, and Picard combined. Now if only I could learn to spell his name.

My mother will love my new haircut.

Fri, 17 Dec 2004

Euros

A new phone company. A new service provider. Get one eye lazered somewhere else, and we'll do your second eye for free.

radio

radio is a bar draped in red in downtown oakland. i sit in it roght now discussing just how bsy my personal love ninja is. she was boobin around the house this morning, even before the sun rose. she is always up early, but this morning, her dad was coming to gather her presents for the rest of bthe family. so she was wrapping and cleaning and packing and all manner of other things.

I, on the otherhand, slept until 2.

Thu, 16 Dec 2004

The Sad Truth

I turned on the heat.

The Dichotomy of Modern Living

It is cold.

Do I turn on the heat, thus expending precious natural gas.

Do I cover myself with a blanket.

Do I get a sweater, likely waking up the sleeping V, cat, and boysess.

I think I'll warm myself to the radiation of multiple computers staring back at me.

Hunter Gatherer

And in those primitive days, it was the male's job to forage upon the Intarweb for movies, humorous news, and television shows to show the female when she got home from a hard day at the office. And sometimes, he would stumble upon VHS tapes. And others, he'd find Bit Torrents. And then, still, at other times, he'd find magazines.

I've seen the GD cover, and it is good. Very good, god dammit.

Wed, 15 Dec 2004

Service Hopping

It's already here. You jump from cell phone company to mobile phone company, to cable company, to new york times, to oakland tribune, to netflix, to greencine, everquest, to WoW, to anarchy online, to

You get the picture. It's a neverending spiral brought on by addiction, deals, price cutting, and advertising. we have become a society so engaged by the next thing, the next offer, the free cooupons that the rest of the world is now floating us on credit. They are absolutely certain we're suckers. Which, we are. Nobody ever went broke investing in the ignorance of the American people. Irony has propelled undesireable products into the forefront, with a double headed penetration of each end by the consumers.

Eventually, the ads and offers and deals and cut rates incentive plans will destroy the base of the towers, hollow them out, collapse them. Western corporate downfall. And it will suck for us all, for then they'll start buying the rights to our fillings, and replacing them with radio transponders to boost their signals for the low low price of 19.99$ a month, you too can become a part of the machine.

I have to do something with my hair. A Mohawk is calling to me, beconing me closer. "Come," it says, from the baber shop around the corner called Phat Phades.

posted at: 16:38 | path: | 113 Comments

Tue, 14 Dec 2004

Late Fees

So, Blockbuster is going to get rid of late fees entirely. Wow. What a move. That's gonna ruin their income stream, I'd bet. they must seriously be losig customers. Perhaps it has something to do with the shitty selection in their stores.

the first info is in on my last issue of Game Developer magazine, and it's quite good. While the rest of the magazine industry evaporates ( Ziff and IDG shitting all over themselves this week, three mags die as a result) it's nice to see someone actually chatting about my mag in a nice way. This lady certainly liked the postmortem, and a number of other folks have had some kind words so far. I genuinely feel that I will be vindicated. GameDaily died for a reason, folks. the games industry folk grew up on Nintendo Power and GamePro, so their standards may be low, but they certainly prefer interesting writing to that generic lifeless crap that you see in Network magazines and the like. everyone keeps saying that the fucking industry requires people to be passionate about games. Well, then why the fuck can't they have a magazine that is too? Network week is not passionate about network security. They are passionate about news and tips.

Bah, whatever. i'll get to put my hands on the issue shortly, and that's all that matters.

Mon, 13 Dec 2004

penn and teller

I love Penn and Teller's Bullshit, on Showtime. some of the episodes are not so great, but they always please with their lampooning of peoples way too willing to be on TV. I don't think I'll ever sit in front of a TV camera again.

It's gotten to the oint where there are two types of people. Zombies and Vegans. Cool on TV, not cool on TV. The stars, and teh rest of us, who are now only allowed on the tube as ironic characatures of ourselves. There's always someone waiting to make you eat bugs for nothing, or explain your hobby as if you were the spokesperson for an entire movement.

Phone

we were down. Yes. It was DNS. we are back. We are happy again. And so we sing.

the phone rang like a small calypso band tuning up to the death trows of their drummer. The bongos and beats of teh actual ring tone were drowned out by the more fundamentally jarring rattle the phone made as it bounced around the table. I grabbed for it, pulling the sleep from my eyes and voice. I've gotten quite good at this. The second I hear someone coming in, or calling me, I can make it loko and sound as though I have been awake for hours, when in fact I've been sleeping until 2PM.

Yeeeeeeeeeello?

There was a pause, and a withered old voice came across the line. Some breathing. Then the old voice again. I knew who it was instantly. And he was masturbating. Probably on the floor of his living room, lampshade on his head, canelabra lovingly shoved into his other mouth. turned ever so slightly so that the downward swing of it was caressing his balls.

Jacob couldn't be bothered to go into work that day, but he sure as fuck could find out why Gism was down. The violent winds of this past week destroyed many connections, and resulted in a lot of disruption around the Intarweb. Yes, Gism was down.

And so it was that I was forced once again to listen to a man who's greatest accomplishment in life is having trained himself to mask the sound of his own fapping to those with whom he is communicating via telephone. He asked what I was wearing, but I wasn't going to play his silly games.

Is Jehosiphat there?

Of course not. I replied. He died in last month's potatoe famine.

I think this was wen he started spurting.

I'm back, beotch

Thu, 02 Dec 2004

Milla

She was Irish, evidently, but that probably came from the husband, who'd left months earlier for an extended sex and evasion tour of Paris. Milla's nose screamed Jew. we all knew it, and the Irish surname didn't fool anyone.

She looked at me, unaware of how wrong she was. Unaware that she'd fucked up so bad that the universe would soon collapse in upon itself and rearrange into an unknown form, unidentifiable by any from this plane.

I was fired.