So, I’ve been pondering this week and it has allowed me to choose a truly fitting final five of my top ten. Funny enough, the first of these, number five happened after I started this list and bumped another idea off… but it is just too good to leave off this list. Thus, without further adieu or flourish, let us begin!

5.) Getting Misquoted.

I don’t know about you, but I really hate people putting words in my mouth, even good ones. I have a pet peeve with people taking my words and running with them in any sense. Twisting what I meant or even simply wrongly conveying what it is I was getting at are all a quick trip to a minefield of glares and gnashing of teeth on my part. Now, this happens often with family who inaccurately summarize my meanings on my behalf to others, leading to confusion or simple misinformation. However, at times, such things are spread far beyond and lent false credence due to their source.

Such is the case with Larry King.

What?! You wonder what it could be that I mean. Yes, I am talking about the stalwart Larry King of nightly CNN fame. For you see, I replied to a twitter post of Mr. King’s a few days ago, calling his show lineup (Spencer & Heidi from the Hills, Jeff Foxworthy and David Cook) insipid and in all truth they are.

However, on the show that night apparently they were having Twitter comments run along side their bottom screen news ticker. And… guess who got on LKL?

Screenshot

As you can see, the text was edited when compared to:
RT @kingsthings: “David Cook, Heidi & Spencer, and Jeff Foxworthy tonight. wouldn’t that make for an…” No Mr. King, they are just insipid.

Haha, Oh well. Tis interesting indeed.

4.) MLA Style.

Now a lot of people love this style, whereas I used to at one time for my academic work. However, my love affair with this style ended of late, as I’ve been working for the past two years in Chicago-style or a mutant-variant of Harvard-style.

My issue with MLA is not over complexity, as it is simple to use and
un-intimidating to the highest degree. However, it is somewhat restrictive. At least with Chicago-style, once you get over your fear of footnotes (ie: Stop being a namby-pamby wuss) as many students seem to have, then you are honestly golden.

Why?

Simple, footnotes are used as much for commentary on the source and your use of it as for an actual citation. Now come on, what can really be better than that for a student? A chance to truly clarify why they are using such a source and further the purposes, by these comments, of why you used it in the first place. Really, that is basically improving the chances that the reader will understand your choice and logic, and could improve your grade.

MLA is restrictive in this regard, as is APA and true Harvard. So just remember kiddies, footnotes are your friends!

3.) Reality Television and Dull-witted Game Shows.

Now while I could, honestly, write a separate section for each one here, I think it would be easier for us all if I didn’t. My first issue with such things is they give people like Jeff Foxworthy and the pair of Heidi-Spencer work. As a rule, unfunny comics and unworthy stars should not be encouraged… However, in both cases this occurs quite often.

As for game shows, I’m really tired of the belittling yet redneck funny some of them have taken on and while this is not just a stab at Forworthy’s most notable routine, it does fit for a lot of the new shows. Like those lie-detector based ones that were popular for a while… Come on people, those were simply stupid, crass and largely entertained mostly those who live off the sensationalism and misery of others.

As for reality television, similar statements apply. Still crass and sensationalistic, the shows build faux celebs who really have done even less than the regular folks who garner such honours. Equally, the shows run like a whiny, live version of a blog (one which is not like this one, which is based on high-minded ideas. haha…) Equally, like my complaints on new media, this kind of thing just pacifies people from legitimate thought on important matters and clouds us from the things which really effect our lives.

And really… the people on both shows are turned into caricatured marionettes, flung about for our amusement rather than actually being shown as human beings.

2.) Anyone who questions the sheer greatness of Don Newman.

If you don’t know Don Newman, then you don’t know Canadian politics. He is, by most accounts, the supreme amongst Canada’s political commentators and journalists. In truth, this is exactly right. Don, and no joke here, is the man when it comes to putting politicians and other guests in line with.

Check out the Rick Mercer Report video which attests to this, lol.

But seriously some people are questioning Mr. Newman, but not in terms of legitimate attacks on his own views. No, instead some comments reflect beliefs of the left-bias of the CBC (a blatant lie when considering some of their other more right-ish commentators). Others focus on how they need an outsider or a young person to fulfill the needs of Canadian politics.

Well, I dispute this as both an outsider and a younger person! Don Newman was someone I felt I could trust with my news politically. He wasn’t an American-style ideologue or a CTV hack… No, Don forced all people to account no matter the political stripe and asked, in truth, the right questions 99% of the time.

Above all Canadian newscasters, Don Newman was the best of them and the most neutral.

1.) DIAL UP INTERNET

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Gah, this is truly the most annoying thing a blogger and tech-nut can deal with. The infrequent and generally god awful quality of any dial up is bad enough, but of late my Bell Sympatico Dial Up has been hell to deal with. I really don’t even know why dial up is still supported by carriers as it is, in truth, utterly useless with the Internet as graphics and bloat heavy as it is.

Now, I have no real say in this matter, as I’m living back home for now… So I kinda have to deal with it. Still, really in more remote areas there needs to still be put in place better alternatives so that even those who are geographically disadvantaged or otherwise are not hindered in truly being able to use the services they choose to pay for.

I mean, it has taken me an hour just tonight to get Live Messenger working at all… it’s just excessive effort for things which won’t work well under the restrictions of Dial Up. Oi, and the resulting computer lag with all of this loading going on can be killer…

C’est la vie, so they say… eh?

Well folks, I’ll be back tomorrow with a view on my politics and the recent events in Ottawa.

Enjoy folks,
- Brad.

Instead of a truly formal post or analysis of Micheal Ignatieff’s movements today, as I will do that as soon as I digest it all into nice bite, then spite it all up along with my own bile, all for you to see and revel in. As such, I will now digress into a short post on the simplest of topics, a vent-rant. Here is, for my enjoyment and your attention, the things which annoy me.

These things are, mostly, simple things but some people or companies tend to forget them at times and drive me up the wall, these are no complex things nor fast-paced or difficult… but just simply insipid. If you follow, yes, this is due to my retort to Mr. Larry King via Twitter. His current guests, such as that hack Jeff Foxworthy or that loser-star couple from the Hills, are exactly that… insipid. While I normally enjoy Larry King Live, it is no Canadian broadcast of news. Which is actually a good thing for those of you downcast Canucks who don’t see the value of, for instance, public broadcasting.

But, none of these small gripes compare with my current slate of distain.

10.) Facebook User Names:

When I first read this particular gem, I pretty much laughed my very soul out my nose and into the air, at which point it fell, hit the curb and died a little. I mean, wasn’t the point of Facebook to be… known? What’s the entire point to form a true ‘social’ network with your family if your redirecting them with weird shorthand forms of your login? I mean most will likely not even choose names which reflect their true names and such a thing IS possible.

Really what this does it open the flood gates for other, forum-ish implementations for the site, and that ruins the little good it actually provides, which like Twitter is truly none.

9.) Cliche Reports on Mexico, Mexicans and all such related things:

It may be just because I have recently become quite good friends with several people of Mexican-origin or it may be the beeping of my ‘hypocrite’ detector, but I really hate the reports which one tends to find about which maligns Mexico as a corrupt, drug-ladened, thug-run nation. It is simply not true. I have met the most fascinating people from this nation and many of which are destined to do great things home, here and abroad.

Where there is corruption, it is not unlike anywhere else. In the U.S., there are members of the Military who give weaponry to white supremacists, while in Canada our top police force is mired with constant scandal (or so it appears). So why then do I wake up this morning to watch the CBC having a document on the corruption of the Mexican military and police in the ‘war’ on drugs. Really, we all live in glass houses… and should not start throwing stones here and there.

8.) The ‘film’ Troy.

Now, some of you who know me will have been expecting this, but really this movie is a brain-busting, gut-wrenching awful fest. I mean some people might like the weird-armored Brad Pitt-Achilles, but really… He’s a darn half-wit and could not come close to carrying off such a complex and truly bloodthirsty character.

Equally distressing is the misuse of the Ancient epic, The Iliad, and it’s plot line. I mean, I shan’t sweat the small stuff like changing the ages and relationship of Achilles and Patroclus. I will become enraged with massive mistakes like the mess they made of Aeneas (He can’t even pronounce his own name right…), Hector’s death scene (“HECTOR! HECTOR! HEEEEECTOR!” yells Achilles) and… the weird deaths of Agamemnon and Menelaus which were needless, wrong and simply out-of-left-field.

Simply put, there is nothing good BUT Eric Bana in this film, even if the other famed actors are quite good normally… Only Mr. Bana shines amid this stinking pile of refuse.

7.) The ‘Actor’ Orlando Bloom.

See #8, then the rest of his films… even my beloved Lord of the Rings and you will see why. He is just not that good compared to everyone who props him up in a film, like John-Rhyms Davies or Johnny Depp. Mr. Bloom is a hollow, never different actor. With his characters all wreaking of the same ‘saminess’ as each other.

Gah, he deserves not more writing…

6.) Twilight Fandom.

Honestly, I’ve only been able to read bits of the books at a time, while avoiding the film all together. But what I’ve read of it supports the general critique against the series, it’s author and those who fervently peddle it. It is a piece of ‘low-pop’ culture drivel with a penchance for being less than progressive at every turn.

The main character is an unintelligent and subservient woman, with no true will other than to mope or weep or be moderately please when her vampire-love arrives. Meanwhile, he is an idiot with the noble idea (which he does disgard yet no one seems to question) of not turning her into the living dead. Oh how ‘bloody’ romantic! The remaining characters are cut-outs and algams, really. None of them overly special, none of them interesting and really none of the fans care about them.

And it’s the fans I take issue with most of all, simply because they blindly overlook and deny the series faults, while trashing true fantasy like Lewis or Tolkien (such has been done in my wrathful presence). Like the Jonas Brothers are to music, Twlight is to books. Written for those who among the younger ages wish to never stray outside the coloured lines and never wish to seek true difference, only that which we are told to look for when convenient.

5.) Nintendo and Its self-imposed Barrier to Growth.

Nintendo has garnered. quite successfully, my ire over the past decade with little respite. I am not, as you would guess a Nintendo-hater, I after all only own a Wii in terms of my current gen. system. But Nintendo, despite surprising me and winning out with the Wii formula, has done great ill to itself and will again suffer for it as it did with the purple Lunchbox GameCube.

The first of these ills are a predicament which makes their current e3 line up simply feature sequels and re-hashings of existing series. Yes, we all love Mario… or do we? I’m quite tired of their obese yet jolly plumber, but at least he stays fresh with truly experimental game-play. In other series, and I’m looking at you Legend of Zelda, there has been no real progress since they’re last true reinvention (Every major LoZ game since Ocarina on the consoles, for instance, has been a play on its themes and gameplay).

While others, like Metroid, aim to be darker but cannot go the distance and generally rely on gimmicks to make up the difference. This reveals a weakness right off the bat, as Nintendo lacks for certain the truly mature game which every company needs just one of. It’s time for Nintendo to shun off some of it’s plastic perfect family veneer to do something new, while reaching a balance with that and its existing lineup.

Meanwhile some series, like Legend of Zelda, need literally to be retired for awhile so we can let them become a bit less ‘radioactive’ and convoluted inwardly, thus that someone could pick up the series later (a la Metroid Prime I and do something quite new).

… Anyways, that’s it for part one… be sure to keep tuned for Part Two and…

Enjoy,
- Brad.

So it seems that right now in the world we have several failures, successes and spectors of… elections. Now some people, particularly on the Left I think, have lost faith or never had it in such a process. I, on the other hand, am a buzzing democratic-type, in spite of myself and my socialistic tendancies. It’s quite odd to be so civic-minded really at my age, or so it seems. Most Twenty-somethings are a little less willing to be engaged with the political process than I am I suppose, but still I think that the same age group is largely underestimated in Canada. I mean, what can the youth of an aging nation truly do? A lot! Otherwise, organizations like the CFS (Canadian Federation of Students) would not have as large an effect as it does in lobbying government. Woah! Last time I reference my true student ‘agenda’ here! haha. No, but I am keeping my student union work off the blog as it’d just be weird for me trying to talk about politics and lobby for my own causes at the same time.

Anyway folks, lets head down the rosy path of the elections which I’ve been, like most of the world, keeping tabs on this month.
Iran is the place to start as it is after all the current hotbed of an election, with riots and clashes on going. Right now, the central conflict lies between Ahmadinejad, the former President pre-election and the one which has now claimed victory, and Mousavi, former Prime Minster from the period of the Iran-Iraq War. Now, those aren’t the only two candidates… but lets face it, those are the two that people are paying attention to, with Rezai and Karroubi’s only importance being if they chance to steal votes from the other two… Oh wait, that is important. Hmm…

Well, lets be serious then. In depth analysis of this issue will sound quite hollow, so lets just go with what we know here. Mr. Ahmedinejad is generally a polarizing figure, both in and outside of Iran. As such, he persues an agressive, if not utterly foolhardly forigen policy of agitating the world community to the highest degree he can. Really, that isn’t a bad move as it plays well with his conservative base and the Mullahs who really run the country. Mr. Mousavi, though slugging the country through a war and all, actually is a more liberal voice within Iranian politics these days, I mean not as far as Karroubi… but still. He was for many, including former president and reformer Khatami, the best choice for many in this regard. Equally, his tendancy towards a consilicatory policy abroad, moderate nuclear progress (as that’s never going away) and his support for the urban growth of Iran make him an attractive candidate.

However, these are the final results:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: 62.6%
Mir Hossein Mousavi: 33.8%
Mohsen Rezai: 1.7%
Mehdi Karroubi 0.9%

Turnout: 85%

Err, what? With the aggressiveness of this campaign and the level of intense debate, truly THAT wide of a win for Ahmadinejad seems, well out of the question. However, we must also take into account the rural voting and the strength of the tradtional establishment… yet, for there to be the same breakdown even in blatant Mousavi strongholds… Oi, I just hope the violence which is following won’t be violently suppressed.

On a brighter note, it seems like neighbouring Lebanon is doing quite well.From every report I’ve read, the March 8 Group, including Hezbolla, seem to be taking their lose to the ruling March 14 Coalition quite well. I mean, really for a country that was held in civil and external strife for a lot of the past sixty years, that is actually pretty great news.

However, let’s get frank here.

Brad: “Hey Frank!”
Frank: “Wha?”
Brad: “Just wanted to make you feel appreciated there.”
Frank: “Thanks, however I don’t appreciate the bias take you have on this…”
Brad: “Oh, how is that?”
Frank: “Well, speaking from a pro-Western standpoint, of course you’d see this defeat of March 8 as a good thing.”
Brad: “Hmm, that is a good point. March 14 IS heavily backed by the U.S. and most of the West. But the same can be said for March 8 and their Iran-Syria backers.”
Frank: “Good counterpoint. So really, what we have to keep in mind is that there ARE outside forces at play here which manipulate the Lebanese people on both sides, even if you clearly prefer the less aggressive March 14.”
Brad: “Thanks Frank!”

Anyways, overall at least we have the accepting of the democratic processes by the opposition, so far, in spite of losing their governmental veto. What that truly means is that, even if there is a dash of cynical manipulation and a chance for violence, there has been a move towards peaceful discontent which really is just apart of politics itself.

Now, to move back a bit closer to home, there is the EU elections and though I did refer to them before, I must still express some puzzlement at the move right, but not as much as one might expect. I mean sure, the puzzlement with me really is “Why even move to the Right at all?” but really, if you look beyond my ideology, you can see why. In central-Western Europe, the right-wing is doing relatively well, a la Germany, for itself long before this period of economic hardship. While in England, as I ranted before… Well, Labour has utterly blown it. So there is no other choice. Now, for areas like Italy, I can’t say that this kind of a move is a shock. Not because, as some unintelligent boob would jump: “ZOMG Fascists!” — But because there has always been a rich tradition of diversity within Italian politics since the Second World War, including Hardline right-wingers like Mussolini’s granddaughter, but equally as many hard left and moderates of all stripes.
And now, at last… Home as per Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, clicking my shoes the whole way.

Yeah, I know this is a weekly ‘world’ round-up, but I wanted to give a quick preview of a possible topic which will be coming up in the next day or so. The next Canadian election. Right now, government could in theory (ha!) fall. Now while I’m cynical it shall happen, I still want to mention it. Expect a post on it within the next while, if it occurs or not.
Anyways, I think you know what’s coming next, so I hope you had a good weekend and for this post, today and your coming week…

Enjoy folks,
- Brad.

Brad is currently testing the Hemmingway theme.
Give feedback, if mostly negative… Give command: Delete post and restore theme.

Tis all.

The Ninth Degree.

So I decided something this morning. I decided that I’ve been subconciously laying threads about, in several of my posts, for a larger thesis. However, the interconnectedness of it all was partially clear, but not in full. However, that’s why I’m in school and take classes, to fill-in the blank spots of my analysis and place it in the context which I reach towards. Thankfully, over the summer, I’ve been taking a course on Science Fiction. Science Fiction you say?!? Yeah, it’s a great course which is focused away from pulp Science Fiction and more on books which have a deeper thread within, like Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle or Gibbson’s Neuromancer.

Somewhat suprisingly, these books have challenged me and become more than just a simple break-time course for fun. Really, I’ve been taken to task on my politics, my Reason and now – at last – my reality. What all of these books have done for me is allowed me to take my primarly Marxist critique of the world’s politics and social structure and apply a post-Modern twinge to it. Overall, this has left me more satisfied with how I conceptualize things.

To understand what I mean, one must accept that in the end there is no objective truth. This is the only answer I can really provide to the questions of the things I’ve read and, with my views on their being no universal religious truth, this was no stretch for me at all. Secondly, we must realize that we ourselves are moving away from ‘hard reality’ or simply reality, into what is called by many philosopher’s ‘hyper-reality’. This meaning of course that what we see and do and say no longer are focused on direct things but on things which describe or represent those things. So then, we are disassociated with the target which aim to describe.

Furthermore, due to this, the more we attempt to be precise and reach back to the essence of reality, the farther we move from it as we still are using points of comparison to reach a goal. One would note here that all language is an exercise in comparison, which results in the realization that an objective truth is difficult to reach. I would go has far as to say it is impossible.

But then, what does this mean in terms of our actual lives?

Well this state of being is heightened by Twitter and other such manifestations of technology. My previous post, really, lays that out there without naming names and simply saying “Yes, I’m talking about Twitter stealing us partially away from our conceptions” and like all media, new media in particular, it can do this. While eDemocracy’s flaws as I pointed out in the first real post I made, is an un-workable dream, and really, with the critques of new media a la Twitter. This now should be bolstered as well by an understanding of why there is no objective truth in a medium like the Internet as a whole, not even counting how this applies to the world overall.

So like I said about the mediums of the Internet and it’s subjunct Twitter, Hyper-reality is meant to dissociate us all from the actual and place us in a new, technocratic stage. However, as I pointed out with Twitter, with all the false independence which we seem to be given, it is hollow as we are still the puppets of another, larger entity. This then is why e-Democracy fails, because in partnership with our flame-warish urge to ram each others faces into large metal poles, we also become disassociated enough to be manipulated by hegemonic power.

Now while this is seen as totally bad, not everyone thinks so. Some people would say, well, this new conception is the right one and moving toward it gives all an open playing field. Personally, coming from a ‘socialistish’ ideology, I doubt that and partially blame how we have done things for the past few hundred years for comodifing things around us which aids in the process of that disconnection from the purely real.

So there you have it, a synthesis of ideas.

Woah, philosophy ho! Time to temper this with something else…

Enjoy folks,
- Brad.

For any burgeoning political watchers out there, this past week has been a festival of the bizarre and the pointless for some, while being of absolute concern for others. This goes the world over really and represents what a lot of people are currently having both issues and positive experiences with in their particular political system. To start in the most familiar territory, lets begin with a check on Canada’s political scene then move through the British political scene.

Alright, this is actually a story with much broader implications, but here is the central issue for those of you not following the story: In Ontario there is a Nuclear Reactor referred to as ‘Chaulk River’. Now, said reactor was built in 1945 and is regulated by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). The central importance of the reactor in this current era is that it produces a large portion of the medical isotopes used for cancer and other medical testing, both in this country and abroad.

Now, almost a year previous to now, the current Conservative government federally fired the top regulator for AECL accusing her of being partisan, while she merely wanted to shut Chaulk River down for repairs to its aging systems if not to eventually replace it altogether. However, she was canned and the Government made a big deal about averting the ‘isotope crisis’ everyone was so worried about. But, like with many things, all of this comes around in time…

For the Government has now placed itself in the situation to be forced to fix those earlier problems, as the reactor again is down and a world medical isotope shortage could easily begin. But wait, there is more! For the Government has been plotting to disgard this burden on itself by selling off and privatizing some or the entirety of AECL. How do we know this?

Well, because Lisa Raitt, the Minster in charge of the AECL file amongst other things, left her briefing book there, with sensative information to this matter… in the studios of CTV, a National Broadcaster. Now, while this is a simple enough mistake and really, not even the Minster’s own fault as those things are typically carried by aides, the established precedents by the current Prime Minster contradict conventional wisdom and state that she herself should have been held accountable for leaking these documents on potential transactions. Mr. Harper in turn then would not accept Mrs. Raitt’s resignation, Mrs. Raitt following with the protocol which the Prime Minster had himself set, and instead let own of her staffers go over the incident.

This issue flared up for awhile, but really died out over the weekend… That is until yesterday evening when, surprisingly, news came to light that a audio recording had been left at the offices of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald now for several month depicting a conversation between Mrs. Raitt and said former staffer. Now, the recording was found in a House of Commons washroom and brought to the news paper by mistake, but still… after months of contacting the staffer and telling her to come get it, the current climate of the news surrounding Mrs. Raitt was just too good for some reporter to pass up.

So, one quick court-battle over the recording later and the Chronicle-Herald was allowed to release the material. Nothing too big, the Minster thinks one of her colleagues are being shielded by her staff (her ally on this file, Health Minster Leona Aglukkaq) and that the crisis is ‘sexy’ for being related to nuclear leaks and cancer, as taking the credit would be of help to her. As well, she libels in my view Micheal Ignatief and claims he was cajoled by Canada’s top Banks not to force the government to fall back in the Winter.

Anyways, the issue is then two-fold: What really is being done, amidst all this internal and external dysfunction about an isotope shortage? And secondly, how much more can the Conservatives mismanage on the larger issues raised by the spectre of all this?

On to Mr. Gordon Brown, Prime Minster and apparently Court Jester of the British House of Commons. Now I mean the jester comment as clearly the aftermath of a duty gone ary wherein he is beaten by his masters, who in a reversal of roles are actually the other Minsters of his Cabinet it seems. Credibility ruined by a Recession combined with a very convoluted and corrupt ‘property flipping’ scandal, as well as inheriting all of Tony Blair’s faults and mistakes… Mr. Brown was essentially screwed all along. Labour was long finished before the latest round of head-spinning blows to the party, which include a Caesarian revolt of trusted ministers defecting and practically stabbing Brown until he looks like little more than ground beef.

To his credit… well, there isn’t much. Gordon Brown has been a most uninteresting figure to watch and regularly one which simply puts me to sleep when compared with say Barack Obama or even the Archvillianesque scheming of Mr. Harper. He is the classic transitionary figure from the fall of a regime to the passing on to a new breed in Westminsterian politics. In Canada, see Paul Martin as an apt example. Both men were rocked with scandals that most assuredly grew under their more well-regarded predecessor, both were less than charismatic and both ended up taking the fall after all.

Really, the problem in Britian is one that began under Blair and likely has roots even further back, so blaming Brown alone is pointless… but thinking better of him due to this reprieve is no win either. So really, British politics is suffering the collapse as the American system, intensity-wise, had at the end of Bush’s term and like the Liberals had, in terms of style, during the Martin-era.
Intitally, I was going to speak of the American issues with closing Gitmo here as well, but I think that would be better served by itself. So hold on and…

Enjoy folks,
- Brad.

Happy Monday! Pah, this sucks. Well, it is a Monday afterall, I suppose you can’t expect much better from it. I’ve been, well, at home most of the weekend, heh… That really doesn’t suffice for a reasoning of why I hadn’t posted. Well, I suppose it is simply because I have felt, save for this nagging post issue, uninspired. Overall, quite blah. Apparently, so have my colleagues.

Well, I said starting this that I’d try and avoid getting all personal and mushy with you, as that bores me and plays into the stereotype of lonely, has-no-life-to-speak-of blogger. However, this is really getting to me, so bear with me. As of right now, I am twenty years old. Not that old, not old enough to even complain about age or not look forward to the passage of another year. Yet, I’m realizing something and it hits me like a brick: I am no longer really a youth either. That ideal, in itself, doesn’t even bother me. I couldn’t care less at this point about age groups made only for statisticians, it is the simple consequences of that which boggle my mind.

Like the fact my peers are starting to get married. Yeah, it’s just weird you know… I mean, I’m more than happy for all those folks, but as the still-single academic who has no plans of heading down that road for awhile yet, I tend to be somewhat disconcerted for them and for me. I mean, for them it might just be a bit early and really in a lot of cases it is. So I tend to worry for acquaintances who do such things. At the same time, though, I worry that I myself am being disjointed from the very people I grew up with, well even more than usual but you get what I mean. I just don’t see myself getting married anytime soon, but it honestly makes me sometimes feel so socially stunted when people are at that stage of their life, while I’m… well, not even close.

The only thing that makes me feel even more out of step with people my age, and even younger, is that their actually having kids themselves. Oi, I still don’t know how to react when someone as young as myself is having a kid. I mean, they’re hopefully taking it as adults and making their own well informed choices, but sometimes not. Even so, however, it’s perfectly normal to start having kids around twenty if you really wanted to, I suppose. Really, I don’t care if someone does in terms of ‘normalcy’ as such social mores are pointless. Yet, I wonder to myself how these people if they’re casting off education to start a family will make it in a world which is more and more often Post-secondary-centric.

Though in the end, what this really does is wake me up to the reality that soon enough, if I want it ever to reach it, that time of my life will be upon me. To be honest, it scares me a little… I am by no means ready to accept the responsibilities for another life nor do I see myself building a family within the next decade, haha. One can’t predict the future, but I have a plan for myself which includes a PhD and a long time in University. I mean plans are hollow casts into the shadowy world of the future, but really… I’m just not ready to be where some of my friends are at.

Then how do I relate to them? It is an honest quandary when so many people are nesting while a few of us are climbing the ladder to the Ivory Tower. I mean, I still want to relate to the general people around me, well… as much as I ever do, being the head-in-the-clouds academic or raging advocate, depending on the mood I’m in. Gah, maybe I worry too much… but maybe not.

I mean I only have two years left of my Bachelor’s Degree. Two years! That’s nothing. Soon, I’ll be leaving where I live with honestly no hope of returning to live permanently. How bleak, but true, for most who live in Newfoundland and walk the path I choose to. I’m going off and away to other places in the country and the world soon. It really is like this inevitable wall which sits just beyond my sights… I can  see the outline near the sun and feel the ground beneath me rushing by.

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but maybe not… Everything is just moving so fast now and I don’t totally know what to do with it. Wow, what a whiny blog post this is! Ugh, I wish I could be conclusive with all these thoughts and clue everything up in a nice package with a bright bow… but I can’t. It’s life and the questions I have will be answered in time, only to be replaced with more…

And maybe, that’s the fun of it all.

Enjoy folks,
- Brad.

Another quick installment of ‘From the Universe’ to tide you over as I won’t likely be posting tomorrow.

This post is a personal favourite as I really got to talk about some current things (ie: Obama’s coming to power) and satirize the dull pop-orifice that is MTV. It’s a bit old and really, even now I’m more jaded on the politics of Obama… still, what I cover here I still want.

“I’ve been in chats with a lot of people, from Profs. to Students to… well, myself. All of these groups have folks which think this whole deal is a great idea, with even a new prospective venture of the folks who participate shaping up (no details here, come to the meeting).

Also, here’s something:

Gamu-Toys has produced a really cool Barak Obama Action Figure!

Posable, head-switchable and apparently, Force-usable, this Obama is ready to take on any foe!

Seriously though, where is my ‘Georgie Bush: Nuke the Whales’ playset or my ‘Clinton Connection’ video game?

http://newsroom.mtv.com/2009/01/23/barack-obama-action-figure-is-here-to-save-the-day/

Yeah, I use this article as it, hilariously, ignores the disclaimer from the originating website.

OBAMA DOES NOT ACTUALLY COME WITH THE WEAPONS, TOOLS.

Shows how much research people do now… eh? But then again, this IS MTV we’re talking about here. They don’t do much of anything.

Look at their line up: The Hills (or ‘Women without brains who are celebrates for no reason’), My Super Sweet Sixteen (or ‘How to prove Capitalism is inane’), The Real World (or ‘How to make humanity look worthy of alien-based genocide for soon-to-be twenty-two seasons’) and…

Well, the entire line up is like that. It’s disgusting to see terrible shows (not morally righteous terrible here, but just terrible as in: lame or chesse-ball).

I mean, wasn’t MTV… about MUSIC? Guess not. Not that, G4, Spike, Much or… well a bunch more are any better. Soon enough, we’ll have a Discovery Channel where Jay Ingram is replaced by a stripper and the entire cast of Mythbusters are kidnapped and emo-prep teen drama queens take their place (like Bodysnatchers, really).”

Update: We actually did get that Creative Writing Journal off the ground at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College. The Inkpot was really a joy for me to start and see come to life. I can’t wait to get into the next edition in the Fall really as such a book of poetry and prose is– suprisingly? –is really important to me.

On the matter of MTV, their still dumb as bricks over there… So they have not recovered their musical heritage or, apparently, their brains.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/Twilight+leads+Movie+Awards+nominations/1562259/story.html

Yeah, I really hate Twilight so this is only a half-fair interpetation, but to me this only proves how dull-witted MTV really is.

On another note, expect a post on Obama soon enough.

Have a good day all and…

Enjoy folks,
- Brad.

PS: Enjoy the short snack of a post this is. Next meal-sized post coming soon.

-Cevian

First off, GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING!

Alright, now that that pleasantry is done with lets get on the move shall we? Good. I’ve been wanting to post this for sometime now, but Matt beat me to the punch a posted a pro-Twitter post. Now, as much as I enjoy stepping on people’s throats, ripping them apart and dancing on their bloodied entrails… I thought that would be mean to do to poor Murley so soon into the game. So I’ve waited literally as long as I could stand before I opened up a can of ‘whoop ass‘, to use the vernacular, on Twitter.

Now another thing is that yesterday, though I caught it this morning, the CBC’s ‘Here and Now’ did a bit on a ‘Shoppers Beware’-style twitter poster and frankly, praised the Twitter all up like there was no tomorrow. Frankly, for a news media to do this is like slitting its own throat with the erasered back end of a pencil in the ledge of a hospital’s roof: Redonkulous. So, let’s pull out the face-crushing boots and get this going.

My first worry with Twitter is a simple one and we’ve already brought it upon here on The Ninth Degree. It being the goddamn “push button, get bacon” style of instant gratification. Just like with laziness in other sectors of the media, in internet communications, Twitter is the lazy man’s blog. Really, we don’t post on Twitter to get knowledge, but to spew unrefined information which pretains to the lives of anyone, in ninty-nine percent of cases, about as much as trying to tally how many people own elephants in your grade 2 class when you were a kid.

Related to this is the ‘me’-centric view of thought these kinds of tools promote, simply because they are bent towards (in terms of marketing) getting not your thoughts on issues out there, but on you. You on you is a really interesting discussion, I’m sure… but lets be honest, do you really want people to know that your showering or doing to get your urethra replaced by a black market team of fifty-five doctors in the back of a supply-shed? Do you honestly think anyone else is really listening?

Sadly, no… we’re really not. Twits/Posts are absolute shots in the dark, an echo amidst the shadows of the internet. As we hopelessly attempt to attract attention to ourselves and our profound thoughts. In this way, blogging (and this blog too) share in the fault and it is apart of the ‘push button’ society we live in (a la YouTube, Digg and everything else). However, all of this self-reflexiveness does make us less willing to do simple research or fact check ourselves in the least. Furthermore, we tend towards apathy, in my personal view, if we take on these attributes and largely ignore larger issues unless they are smacking us right in the face.

In this regard too, we have been given the belief via Twitter that we are honestly and truly free of infringment and that our ideas, no matter how banal, can run free. What we overlook is that Twitter is a company, our ideas are now homogenized and practically theirs every time we post (blogging and WordPress have the same issue really in someways too). With Twitter though above other services, this is compounded by a character-limit. This might not seem like a big deal, but let’s actually take a look at it.

Most people who are pro-Twitter make the case that it allows us to be concise, but what if you want to say more. Sure, you can use a twitter extender app, but really beyond the tech-dorks like myself and some of you, I’d hope, that will not reach a truly mass audience, leaving most people to simply post at the 140 character limit. Really then people are forced to compress large concepts and ideas, if they choose to post them and that leads to weird Orwellian newsspeak running through posts, unlike even the 1337-H@X0RZ chatter of the pre-Twitter internet. Main concern here for me is that if it is difficult to handle large ideas in such a posting, people will aim for the small and quick… kinda like a CNN news soundbite.

Ooo, see what I’m getting at there? Well simply put, there has been a large compression of media as a whole. Movies are shorter than they once were, aside from the epic genre, TV shows have shorter runtimes due to ads, News is littered with soundbites and blurbs and now there is the answer to all those trends for the Internet in Twitter and services like it.

So then, as a whole all of these things contribute to our attention-defict society as we train the human brain to think is small, suggestable bits rather than as a connective whole. Funny enough, unlike the supposed freedom of media like this, it equally pacifies us, this is because with an inability to see the larger picture of politics, the media and the world around us, we can’t properly respond to it. This goes hand-in-hand with the apathy and the diluted attention I was talking about before. But, this is only the direct smaller effects…

What does Twitter’s encouragement of such trends create (as Twitter ‘didn’t start the fire’, but was created by and continues this trend)? Well, due to pacifism, apathy and a lack of attention, people around the world are being sold outright lies from their media, their peers and even, their governments. This kind of thinking, that which Twitter and a lot of ‘Web 2.0′ Super-media promote is exactly what corruption needs in nations, as we can’t properly piece things together.

I mean sure, there are events like flash mobs spawned by Twitter, but let’s be clear here: How many of those people were informed of the issue that prompted the flash mob via Twitter alone? My guess is exactly: None. Only those already awakened to the ills of the world and who have a willingness to do something can and will use Twitter for such things, while the company markets the product blindly on a mass basis.

You know, there are so many more issues I could talk about regarding this, but I have a meeting to get to shortly… so I may have to do another post at some point (keep this in mind when replying, as I’m not trying to avoid anything, but will bring about a Part II in time). Before I end this though, I want to respond to a comment made by Matt on his post quite directly (and I mean no offense nor to attack you here, man).

“With today’s desire to get everything from information to food as fast as we can, I thought it was a great foundation for the system.”

Really? That is a great foundation? I mean really this is behaviour which should literally be walloped out of people by any means necessary! This kind of foundation promotes lazy apathy and ‘baconized’ gratification, restricts creativity, kicks diction in its ass and makes everyone sound like a 1337-speaking version of a lobotomized Ezra Pound! There is simply nothing good about encouraging instant-satisfaction as it has led to a lot of our society’s problems I think.

So with all of that said, I think I’m done.

Enjoy folks,
- Brad.

PS: Add me on Twitter at @Brad_Evoy for great updates on my boring, self-obsessed, brain-dead life.