Blogrhythm

Some people think that with the advent of new media/social media/user generated content that there is going to be a time when there are no standards, and as such, there will be a chaos. With no barriers or hoops to jump through, there will be blogs without sentences or paragraphs. There will be unedited podcasts that will go into, gasp, non sequiturs. There will be video without cuts and editing, where parts of it might even seem incoherent. There will be songs that are over 3 minutes long. There will be those bucking the format of every traditional form of media KNOWN TO MAN.

Furthermore, “objective standards” previously adhered to will now be dismissed. That is, if you define objective standards as those standards made for a large group by a very small select group of people. Call them the mediators of content, or what you will, but now the threat is that all bets are off. Or better yet, under evaluation.

Those who enjoy the promise of user generated content see this as an opportunity to create content and make a living where a barrier of entry had been previously present. Whereas the rule was once that a small quantity of content was made to appeal to a large audience, now a large quantity of diverse content can be sent to small, more specialized audiences.

What cable television did to the broadcast industry decades ago is now happening all at once to all different forms of media because of the internet. Only now, they can create their own “channels.” As such, they can take risks that traditional media was never willing to make. There are podcasts out there devoted to the “Big Lebowski.” Someone can start a blog concerning auto racing in the 1970’s. Another person could create a film documentary concerning larpers. The sky is the limit.

People can decide for themselves what they like, what they find of value, and can also add to the conversation ideas of what could make the content better, or if it has any value at all.

What about standards? As time goes on, there are bound to be changes in standards and qualifications. For instance, office work once required typing, now it also requires computer skills. Any advancement in technology changes the qualifications of certain occupations.

In communications and in media, there is one standard that I believe will be adhered to and that is - whatever it takes to communicate more effectively in a given situation, that will remain. Thus, spelling and grammar will remain a standard because without it, people will not understand one another. However, in any given situation there might be some modification. For instance, in emails or blogs, people sometimes do not end a sentence with a period but an emoticon usually as a way to tell the audience if they are being serious, joking, or tongue in cheek. Is this a breakdown of objective standards or qualifications for a particular bit of writing or does it lend itself to a less formal effective bit of communication?

On the traditional side of that though is there might be fragmentation as people venture out into their own specialization. Used to be you could talk to someone about what you watched on television or heard on the radio, or what book you read. There was a sense of shared culture. But now, with all the new opportunities and choices that await us, there is a chance we will become more niche and less homogenized in our culture.

As the long tail gets longer, it will become harder to relate to one another perhaps, or it could be that there will be all that much more to share when we get together.

Someone in Twitter™ was talking about what dog breeds they despise sent me on a trip through time and space on my history with dogs and my thoughts regarding the canine species. I love dogs, love the idea of having a dog, but I don’t like the reality of having one. This I can say as someone who as a kid had a dog, that grew up, and in turn took my dad on walks. I can also say this as a kid who eventually lost his black Labrador to a nice farm where it must have enjoyed the open spaces and lakes much more than a backyard span with the area of an oversized dog pen.

When I imagine having a dog, I imagine all the good times I would have. Look that guy with the dog in the passenger seat in the car. You are a loner, but suddenly your Han Solo with a wookie. You are the type of loner who might be doing the Kessel run in less than 4 parsecs and maybe have princess Leia waiting for you at home.

Or I think about taking my dog on walks in the park. Maybe meeting a woman who also has a dog, something small and unobtrusive on her part, and then she takes a look and she knows this guy is responsible because he has to keep up with his dog and that makes some sort of subliminal impression.

Think also of the dog that saves you when a fire starts, or the Siberian husky that walks into your room at 3am in the morning when you are sure the ft tall dolls sitting near the open window are beginning to talk among the sounds of cars running over wet pavement and licks you on the palm of your hand in trying to comfort your fears.

Then there is the dog reality. The dog that barks because it needs constant attention. The dog that drinks from the toilet then licks your face. The dog that makes the whole house smell and have the ambience de la pooch. The dog that poops wherever and whenever it will. It needs walking, talking, bathing, feeding, and of course you have to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t chew up and spit out the interior of your house.

“But you could get a small dog”

I think the small dog is like the gateway drug of those people trying to palm off their dog addiction onto you. I don’t want to be walking a rodent on an extend o leash at 9pm at night and taking up the whole street while Minnie has to smell the base of every mailbox in a two mile walk

These dogs also notoriously have some sort of bark tourrett’s syndrome going on that can annoy anyone within a 2.5 mile radius. I think some couples buy them as some sort of anti social early warning detection system.

I like Benji and the dog from “As Good As It Gets” and found them to be a heartwarming addition to the movies of my past, but I don’t want the Taco Bell dog or any other genetically manipulated rat dog for a pet. I have a hard enough time taking care of myself. Don’t even get me started on those misguided individuals who dress their dogs in clothing and take them to see animal therapists. As Jack Nicholson might say “Sell crazy somewhere else, we’re all stocked up here.”

Still, it takes all kinds.

The Happening, the latest movie by M Night Shyamalan heads off in the second week of June, and languishes. Mark Wahlberg stars as a teacher who is on the run from something happening. The thing that “is happening” starts in city parks and apparently disorients, stops, and causes suicidal tendencies. People stab themselves in the neck with pens, they drive into trees, they jump in front of lawnmowers, the dive off buildings and the list goes on. Then of course there are those that choose a slow and painful death who watch any of the M Night Shyamalan’s movies between Signs and this most recent one.

There is a lot of watching the wind….closeups of Zooey Deschanel’s face as she looks freaked out, and a lot of bewilderment and speculation about what is causing “the happening.” The fact that it is not global, but regional is part of the thing that has everyone puzzled. Is it a terrorist attack? Or is it a natural phenom like the blooms of alagae in the ocean that suddenly creeped up out of nowhere.

I knew we were in trouble in this movie when early on Wahlberg is asking students in his science class about theories concerning the disappearance of honey bees and then remarking that “The fact is, we don’t know what causes it, but later we will write down our theories in science book like they were facts.” I knew this was a Shyamalan rationalization.

The problem with this movie, and this is the spoiler, is there is no satisfying answer to this question. I think this is because Shyalaman wants to get away from “the big twist” endings of his movies because he realizes that as far as that goes…he has had about two hits in this matter, and its hard to keep coming up with something that keeps people on their toes.

And that is a problem, because we expected something of a twist. The twist in this case is there is no twist. There are guesses, speculations. And in the movies, unless it is a movie about a historical event, we really don’t want something that has no real satisfying ending…especially in the horror genre.

There were great moments throughout the movie. Some good acting from Wahlberg and Deschanel, but 2/3 of the way through the film it felt like the writers packed up and went on strike. So, you are left there with this hollow feeling at the end of the movie. The satisfying end to this review is, don’t go see this unless you are a big Shyamalan fan and just have nothing else better to do than go to the movies…you know, like me.

Harrison Ford reprises his role as Indiana Jones in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Once again George Lucas managed to take a perfectly good movie franchise and make material that should feel comfortable and warm seem alien and awkward. From the opening credits there are things that make the movie seem a bit “off.”

First of all, I think it was set in the wrong era. Because of the Elvis song, the nuclear age references, it didn’t feel right. Dragging Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in the age of the Cold War felt like grave robbing. But there would be no way to explain Harrison Ford’s age otherwise which definitely screams out that they should never have even made this movie. Or, even more unlikely, they find a replacement for Ford similar to a replacement to James Bond.

Secondly, the CGI of this movie is even more noticeable and painful than the Star Wars prequels. Part of what made the Indiana Jones films great is that they were a departure from the alien worlds of Star Wars. They used models, green screen, rubber snakes, and it felt “right” in those movies. CGI in an indiana Jones movie would be as alien as making the Big Chill take place in space…or replacing Jaws with a CGI version.

In this movie, the CGI sticks out like a sore thumbs from the gophers/prairie dogs, to the semi sentient monkeys who apparently were patriots, to the scampering cgi ants. It turned the movie into something artificial and surreal.

Because of the CGI that was at times gratuitous, it brought down the rest of the film making it sub par and torpedoing it below the other three movies by more than the span of decades. While I am not strongly saying that it ruined by childhood by seeing this movie, it did not make me think warm feelings about anything else Lucas might release in the theaters.

In World of Warcraft there is a time and a place when we gather and fight each other known as PVP or Player vs. Player. If you are on a PVE server or Player Vs. Environment server, you probably are not too interested in round the clock PVP play: most of your day is spent gathering stuff for quests, like centaur ears(nasty), as well as killing creatures and demons and other denizens of the world. You also get XP by exploring new places, and donating materials to the local alliance faction.

There are two types of servers, or realms. Think of realms as identical but separate versions of a world. Or perhaps, it would be like different hard drives that contain the same data for a world, but has different characters or players on each of the realms or servers. The PVE server is one where you voluntarily go flagged for attacking another player. On the PVP realms, you are only unflagged in uncontested safe areas, such as alliance/horde towns and cities. The rest of the time you’re on your own.

In the PVE server I am on, PVP occurs a number of different ways. You enter an enemy city, and you will get flagged for PVP. You heal someone else in battle with a player of the enemy factions, you get flagged. You attack a player who is flagged, or a guard of a major enemy town or city, you get flagged. There is also a glitch whereby an unflagged person can get attacked by a hunter’s snakes and thus will become flagged and summarily killed, but that is unusual, and a player can get banned for such activities.

I am not a big fan of PVP, I think I could also be said to not be that good at it. Still, I despise the practice of high level characters going to low level towns and basically going “War of the Worlds” on those towns, killing quest givers, flight masters, etc. So, I make it kinda my duty while playing an alt(alternative character) of a lesser level to turn into my level 70 rogue(my main character) when this occurs.

The other night, as luck would have it, such a thing occurred while my dwarf paladin was heading back from a quest in Desolace. Nigel’s point was getting hammered. If it had been by the level 38 alone, I would have let it go. The town was definitely a challenge for a level 38 player, and it would have been admirable had the blood elf come alone. Sadly, she (I am estimating here since a lot of dudes apparently play female characters) came along with a level 70 hunter who mowed down pretty much everything in town that could synthetically or artificially breath.

So I sat my dwarf down in the inn and became the level 70 rogue, and had to fly like six minutes to reach Nigel’s from Darnassas (This is a long way for game time…something that I think the hordie was counting on to dissuade retribution). Six minutes later and I thought perhaps the hordie had left, but didn’t. The level 38 wisely went unflagged; not the hunter. So it was vindication time for my rogue. He killed the level 70 twice, once as he was trying to flee the scene. Both times, I avoided the hunters pet and went after Mr. Ranged attacker with a sense of exhilarated glee.

It could have ended there, but didn’t. The thing about PVP is that it is a coin toss. I have been mauled by level 70 hunters, and I have mowed a couple over in my time, and this one I could tell wanted an easy time of it and was not expecting trouble. It doesn’t end there though, the guy logged on using a level 15 alliance alt and berated me for ending his fun.

There are constant insult tactics used when an enemy player gets his karmic return a little earlier than expected. This person called me uptight, immature, too serious, cold, callous, etc. The first thing he asked me though was if I had no life. That actually made me laugh about the South Park WoW episode where the people from Blizzard sat around a table and asked the question “How do you kill that which has no life?”

With PVP, you got to expect anything. And if you whack anything, you have to expect coming whackation. It is going to happen. You might escape here and there, if you are lucky, but it’s going to happen. Yes, it is just a game, and that is precisely my point. I like