George’s Blog

Dear Victoria Espinel, the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator,

I’ll keep this pretty concise:

Recently, the GAO unleashed the knowledge that basically confirming the old adage that 90% of statistics are crap that was made up on the spot. This applies to numbers describing the “damages” the entertainment industry has suffered.

Now, I’m not condoning piracy. Nobody in their right mind should. But I should be able to rip my DVD’s to watch them on my iPod.
I should be able to go through customs without my computer or iPod being searched for “possible” pirated material.
And my tax dollars sure as hell should not be spent upholding the RIAA/MPAA’s unwillingness to innovate their business model.

Please, PLEASE do NOT let their lobbyists dictate or influence one iota of any policy that comes out of your office.

Read THIS and listen to/watch the first 15 minutes or so of THIS.

…she fainted!

The title and first line are from a phrase oft repeated during my formative years, spoken by my dad. I know he’s explained it’s origins to me at least a handful of times, but nevertheless said origin eludes me.

Anyway, 2010 is off and running. It’s running so fast, in fact, that it’s been well over a month since my last post, and I didn’t even notice!

Let me dig into the recesses of my mind and come up with some goings on since my last visit to the blog…

Ah yes! So I tried to get a paid writing position at WoW.com covering Enhancement/Resto shaman. In non-player terms think of a character that either whacks things up close and personal with the power of the elements, or one who heals. I didn’t get the job, and was a little bummed about that. I started to doubt my writing ability. I started wondering if all tiose years I spent writig papers in college were a waste.

The I realized I never really had any formal writing ability to speak of, and what college work I did complete was written in Java or HTML. So really, it doesn’t mean anything, and I can go my merry way without feeligs of inadequacy.

In other news, Quinlyn had an amazing progress report come in the mail from her school. I teared up a little reading it. School is a massive struggle for her the same way it was for me. Only two subjects showed less than desirable results.

Music and computers.

Let that sink in for a second, if you know anything about me.

Yeah.

My jaw dropped on those two. How the frack did that happen? Both of her parents have been musicians since we were her age, and daddy is a fracking computer geek. Something has gone horribly wrong here. Time to uncross some wires.

In other news, the new season of Burn Notice promises to keep us rivited in Thursday night mayhem, and the series premier and first episode of Caprica point to a series with the power to draw me away from the WoW. It also makes me want to order the blu-ray series compilation of Battlestar Galactica, though our lack of a blu-ray player and/or HDTV make that a pretty low priority.

Here’s hoping that 2010 keeps me chest deep in interesting content for the blog.

“Eeeeeewwwww.” That was the remark made by Quinlyn when she saw Lara and I making out in the kitchen this morning, shortly before we served up Lara’s fabulous biscuits and sausage gravy. She quickly covered her face with her hand, as if she was not supposed to watch. But she was peeking through her fingers too.

That kind of confusion, or “train wreck” situation (I know I shouldn’t watch but I can’t stop looking) is, in my opinion, responsible for 87.64% (remember that 90% of statistics are made up on the spot) of the mental disorders and societal problems we have in this country.

It only makes sense. I mean, after all we bombard ourselves with images of sexuality, perfect bodies, heaving bosoms, etc, but we never EVER talk about it. THOSE are conversations best left for private places and whispers. No wonder we’re so messed up! We have taken a core part of our existence and manglefucked it until it’s no longer recognizable!

Sex should be CELEBRATED! I don’t mean that we should all be running around in the buff and doing it like rabbits, but it should never, EVER be a secret. Want to know why teens are having sex and getting pregnant? Because they’re CURIOUS. Not in some whimsical child like way, either. They KNOW that it’s supposed to be fun and feel good, but they’re given a woefully inadequate lack of information as to exactly WHAT makes that true. Know where they’re getting their “facts”? Porn on the interwebs. Yeah, we’re headed down a good path there.

In no way do I believe that it’s the school system’s responsibility either. PARENTS should be teaching this. After all, they are the undeniable experts on sex. After all, if they hadn’t done it, the kid wouldn’t be there.

I like the approach taken by Tracy Reinhardt took when she had “the talk” with her son. She put things in very practical terms, since society had taken it upon itself to pre-educate him. She’s a fracking genius. How can you tell? HE REMEMBERED.

In addition, we are doing a wonderful job of making our kids at best self conscious of and at worst resentful of, their own bodies. You walk in on your kid handling things for themselves and how do you respond? Do you freak out? Are you embarrassed? Do you make them embarrassed? Or do you figure that the real problem here is that you didn’t knock first? Even I’m pussing out of continuing talking about this, and I have almost NO modesty.

We need to do a 180 on our idea of sex and sexuality as it pertains to future generations. We can’t keep sending mixed messages like this, or whatever health care reform is passed won’t be able to support future therapy bills.

Top photo can be found on Flickr by user markfftang

What is it today with the depiction of vampires? It’s hard to admit this, because it takes my self-proclaimed geekiness to a whole new creepy level. But I used to LARP. It was when I was in Nuclear Power School. And the RP game we played was Vampire: The Masquerade (VTM).

LARP-ing is kind of like what happens when cops-n-robbers meets D&D. A bunch of people get together, take on fictional roles, and walk around their city/town/whatever in character, within the limits of the game (i.e., no ACTUALLY sucking people’s blood). Combat is decided by a glorified game of rock-paper-scissors.

There’s a line in “Interview with a Vampire” where Tom Cruises bloodsucker is explaining their existence. He says “We are vampires, pretending to be human, pretending to be vampires.” Well, VTM could be described as a bunch of geeky humans, pretending to be vampires, pretending to be human. In order to play the role right, you had to be a vampire, and that nature would show in your interactions with other “vampires” and in certain interactions with non-playing “humans”. But the trick was that no “human” should ever guess that you’re a vampire.

That’s the Masquerade. There’s a reason for the Masquerade.

Because vampires are fucking evil.

As some one who’s read many a vampire novel, and actually played the role of one Friday and Saturday nights for about 7 months, I’m really disappointed by all the Twilight and to a lesser extent Tru Blood crap out there.

There are, as in any culture, a few noble heroes. In the vampire world, from a human perspective, the “heroes” would be the bloodsuckers that haven’t given in to the urges of the beast within. However, the vast majority of the vampire population doesn’t go out of it’s way to make friends with the humans, or protect them, or fall in love with them.

They feed on them.

These shows are stripping the gore and fear out of the vampire mythos. They are destroying a wondrously terrifying concept by diluting it in longing looks and cleavage shots.

Let me enlighten the writers of these inane shows: the vampire concept doesn’t need any more sexual tension. The very bite of a vampire is already an allegory for sex and penetration. And vampires are not nice. They are barely, and I mean barely, only by the slightest margin better than the beast that calls them from within. If it wasn’t for the fear of permanent death and the instinct for self preservation, they would suck you dry in the grocery store and leave you there, in front of everybody. The only reason they don’t is because it would reveal their existence, which would be bad for said existence.

Can we please leave the scary as scary without making it into a parody of sexy?