Yeah, Everyone’s on Drugs, all the Time
Posted: April 2, 2013 Filed under: Essays | Tags: cartoon network, cartoons, classics, nickelodeon, weird 2 Comments »[Next time you run out of milk and want to have some cereal, just pour applesauce in there instead. It’s not nearly the same, but it’s an option if you have applesauce.]
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It’s finally time to tackle one of the issues closest to my heart—that’s right, kids’ cartoons and trying to enjoy both the old and the new. I may be twenty-one years old (almost twenty-two), but ten years ago I was already having my mid-life crisis in dog-years, so I don’t want to hear your age-related arguments about “being too old” to watch cartoons. And one day, I hope to have kids, and I sure as shrimp don’t want to be out of the loop when they get into that phase. So I stay tuned in because I still like them and have enough free time to do so. Naturally, that leads to me trying to watch them in the company of people who aren’t as familiar as I am—people, presumably, who think they’re too old or mature for that kind of stuff. In that case, someone inevitably brings up one of my least favorite comments: “Man, cartoons are so weird these days. These writers are clearly on drugs. They were so much better when we were younger, right, Ryan?” (For a mention of other entertainment-related comments that bother me, read my last post, specifically, about professional wrestling).
Now before I go on with the deconstruction of that criticism, this illustrates an important, more general point worth making. Obviously the world around us changes as we get older, but we of course change as we get older, too. When you’re a little kid, you read stories about monsters under your bed ignorantly attempting to put on clothes and pigs running around building houses.
Still one of my favorite kids’ books
Combine that with cartoons and neon-colored food, and you’re practically bathing in a kiddie pool of imagination. Your brain is so overloaded with absurdity that sex references in your kids show can’t possibly get through to you as being creepy or “off” (plus you just didn’t know about that stuff yet). Of course when you get older, people try to force reality down your throat and up your ass simultaneously, so anything colorful or fantastical is too sweet for your big boy taste buds.
OK, now for some explanation of why I believe current cartoons aren’t any weirder than they were ten or fifteen years ago, and if writers are on drugs now, they were definitely snortin’ the same stuff back then, too. Overall, cartoons were always about being unrealistic and silly while containing a heavy dose of social commentary lurking in the background. So to think that cartoons are more risqué than back in the day is wrong. Go back to the very beginning (not counting Steamboat Willie): if you can picture all the cross-dressing and lipstick marks in the Looney Tunes cartoons, you probably know what I mean…not to mention the very explicit gun, bomb, and piano-related violence.
This happens in so many episodes it’s not even funny…oh wait, yes it is.
Or to go with something that hits a bit closer to home, consider this video as anecdotal evidence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xbNEhezUfVE#! . If you take out Adventure Time and Spongebob, those are all clips from shows we would have watched as little kids. Admittedly, not everyone would argue that cartoons never had sexual content or material that was meant to make the parents chuckle, but I didn’t want to leave that unattended.
The more common issue I hear is that cartoons have gotten weirder in a more broad sense—that they have outlandish premises or ridiculous animation. Now keep in mind I don’t have any problems with the old shows I’m using as examples; I just want to defend some of the newer shows that I really find enjoyable. Three of my favorite cartoons—Spongebob Squarepants, Regular Show, and Adventure Time—come under heavy fire for being silly, stupid, and disgusting. Yet the same people who rag on them would talk about how great Aaahh!!! Real Monsters or Ren and Stimpy was.
I’ll give it to you: Adventure Time (right) is weirder, but not by much. You gotta consider context, anyway.
I understand that some people have their innate nostalgic sense of loyalty to the cartoons that were bumping when they were younger, but I feel like there’s no need to trash the new stuff. It’s not like newer cartoons are threatening the classics or stealing airtime—the reason those shows aren’t on anymore is because people you stopped watching them. Using the excuse that they’re not on air anymore because they’re old is nonsense; not even Bill Cosby could keep Looney Tunes off TV. Look, you don’t have to follow Adventure Time or Spongebob; I get it if you think they’re stupid, because they are stupid. I just happen to still find “stupid” funny these days. Just understand that they’re fundamentally similar to what was around in the 90s. As Method Man once said, “Before you play the game know the rules//Cuz still ain’t nothing changed but the jewels.” All cartoons are gems of an idea; they’re just coming in different shapes, sizes, and colors now.
Photo URLs:
Huggly: http://www.betterworldbooks.com/huggly-gets-dressed-id-0439102685.aspx
Bugs Bunny: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/21928?page=1227
Krumm (left): http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/51244/aaahh-real-monsters-season-one/
Adventure Time (right): http://adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Nightosphere_(location)
The Bible and Professional Wrestling, and how to Approach them
Posted: February 11, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bible, Christianity, Professional Wrestling, WWE Leave a comment »[People rush way too much to attend to trivial matters while they hesitate to act on the things that are actually pressing.]
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Chances are I’m a pretty bizarre dude. Please don’t think sexual; that’s not what I’m talking about. I put the water in my mouth before taking a pill, instead of the other way around. I’ve been known to rock a Civil-War era pair of mutton chops. I prefer to wear a crew neck sweatshirt over top a flannel, as opposed to the analogous dress shirt-sweater combo. But to my knowledge, I don’t take much heat for that stuff. Rather, the least understood things about me might be my faith and my love of professional wrestling. I’m not sure if any other human in the history of mankind has ever (or would have) made this marriage of concepts, but I promise a connection—however tenuous.
DISCLAIMER: This is not in any way what I believe about the “Rapture.” Jesus would in fact beat Macho Man in a wrestling match. Yes, even Macho Man.
I recently attended a youth ministry discussion about Faith and Doubt—the undeniable fact that all Christians have doubts about what appears in the Bible and how we deal with these concerns. People are constantly tempted to label all Christians as anti-big bang, anti-evolution, anti-gay. Well I once was a physics major, I’m now a biology major, and I simply don’t have a problem with gay marriage. I have resolved all these apparent contradictions because such beliefs are determined by how you view the Bible: do you see it as the words of God, or the Word or God? In other words, how literally do you take the Bible? I tend not to think of it as a textbook, so I don’t get my science from there. Nor do I think of it as an unblemished, perfectly translated account of historical events, so I am cautious before I take it literally. The Bible may not be a textbook, but it is meant to teach. And when we learn from a piece of literature or a movie, we don’t look at specific scenes or chapters without considering the overall message, certain themes, and historical context. Am I labeling the Bible as fiction? No, but I am suggesting that the way we study other forms of art and media can be applied to one’s faith. In the end, it’s all meant to express and to learn.
Now I never thought I’d have to work harder to defend anything other than my belief in Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, but here I am trying to sell you professional wrestling. Just as much as the Bible is about learning how to live a loving and disciplined life, professional wrestling is about enjoyment. People get so caught up in whether or not it’s “real” that they forget the whole point. Ever since the feud with the World Wildlife Fund, we’ve known it as the WWE—or World Wrestling Entertainment. First and foremost, it is entertainment.
Heel move by the World Wildlife Fund
[Allow a slight digression here, because everyone asks me this question: “But it’s not real, is it?” Well that’s a hard question to answer. It is not real in the sense that the results of matches are scripted. It is real in the sense that they really do get slammed on their backs, hit with metal chairs, and fall from many, many feet in the air. You can’t avoid these things; physics doesn’t care about entertainment. Wrestlers break bones, tear muscles, and on the rarest occasions, even die. Many of them have worse post-career lives than professional football or baseball players. Please do not assume that what they do is easy or painless.]
Anyway, if you have a problem with fighting mixed with soap opera-esque plotlines, then you have every right to hate on pro wrestling (even though it is America’s only self-developed form of theater). But if you are against it on the premise that much of it is staged, please consider this analogy. When you walk out of a movie like Inception or Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, do you complain to your friends, “Man, that story was so fake, that fight scene would never happen in real life”?
You can tell those Oliphants are fake; this is dumb.
I’d like to think not, because you know that movie isn’t meant to be some realistic depiction of life. It’s fiction, and we all know it, but we enjoy it because we view it as entertainment. That’s essentially what professional wrestling is to me: a series of action-packed fight scenes, except the players are charged with doing these extremely impressive stunts live.
So if those aren’t the reasons why people find fault with Christianity and professional wrestling, then I don’t know what they are. But it seems to me that the critics of such lifestyles would rather see them in a way that makes them easy to reject or ridicule. Those who have beef with the Bible don’t want to see it as a giant metaphorical teaching because the literal interpretation is the only thing they have a problem with. If they acknowledged a more liberal view of the Bible, then they might just have to become a Christian or be a hypocrite. And those who have beef with professional wrestling don’t want to see it as entertainment. If they can’t maintain the illusion that its writers are trying to fool us with a “real” show, then nothing separates it from the sports and movies they love. Christianity and professional wrestling: I see them as suffering from similar forms of criticism. People try to ascribe to them purposes that their creators never intended. You don’t have to believe and enjoy the same things that I do, but I do ask that you truly understand why I love them so.
Photo Credits:
Macho Man: http://www.rantsreviewsrock.com/2011/05/well-not-what-everyone-was-expecting.html
Pandas: http://perfectpandas.com/2010/07/02/wwf-panda/
Oliphants: http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Mumakil
The Work-to-Enjoyment Ratio
Posted: August 15, 2012 Filed under: Essays | Tags: Enjoyment, Food, Formula, Work Leave a comment »[“RAW AND UNCUT” is something we always want in our extended edition movies but never with our chicken.]
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“Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to work so hard for things that I like to do.”
-Ryan Jiorle
It can be really powerful to start off a paper with a relevant quotation and use its interpretation as a means for a thought-provoking and alluring introduction. Unfortunately, this was the only truly relevant one I could find, and there’s not much to interpret. This self-proclaimed aphorism expresses a sentiment that many share, especially when it comes to food. For barbarous animals, eating is necessary for survival and likely does not imply a relaxing sense of enjoyment. For 1st-world humans, who I guess can still be a bit barbarous at times, eating has evolved, perhaps just as much as our species has. Not only does the act of consuming food often engender a feeling of ecstasy, but also that we’ve come to expect it to do so. I like to imagine that, on an instinctual level, animals eat certain things and have a primal feeling along the lines of, “This isn’t providing nearly enough proteins for my body’s daily functions. I’d rather not eat that again.” But once again, we humans are different. Our complaints are generally more like, “I ordered the Italian wedding soup, not some sort of gazpacho! Heat it up next time!” Or perhaps, “I really like the taste of this chicken, but the texture of the sauce is all off. I’d rather not eat that again.”
It really is crazy to see how far we’ve come.
Despite the show-stopping nature of these matters, they all become trivial in the face of our most important concern: How much work do I have to go through to eat this food? Even that question is considered (not in a “thinking” way, more of a natural reaction) by Earth’s other species when hunting or foraging. Only, as usual, we’ve managed to allow it to devolve into trifling details such as picking food off of a bone or how hard it is to chew something. Nevertheless, I am a victim of this laziness and thus define the Work-to-Enjoyment Ratio as
Assumptions are that one has healthy jaws, taste buds, and hands, while any preparation of the food is excluded from the measure of work. In other words, the meal is sitting on a plate, ready to be eaten. This should make sense intuitively, and many will have clear examples of this phenomenon at work in their minds. Regardless, I will delve into the two components of this formula to show how they apply to real-life meals.
To start with the numerator, “work” is something everyone should, in theory, hate. Jobs are usually irritating, no one likes doing homework, and housework is something men made an effort to avoid for centuries. So why should we, as an extremely advanced (or “derived,” for you biologists) race of creatures, have to work so hard to eat certain foods? Eating, by all accounts, is meant to give us energy, and any work required to peel, cut, or pick is counterproductive to the ultimate goal (let’s ignore the fact that I often eat so much that I’m pretty sure I’ve lost energy). And being in the numerator, work acts to increase the value of the WTE and, just as with Calories, the lower the number, the better. As previously hinted at, work is determined by any act of cutting, peeling, or picking around bones. Also, the number of napkins required to clean up oneself and the need to use a wet nap or water (for sticky foods) are also accounted for.
This one gets confusing and frustrating, just like real-life work.
Of course, there are different ways of serving certain foods, so just imagine the food in its most common state. For example, fruit is unpeeled, vegetables are ready to eat if cooked in as part of a meal (but not so if you’re weird and eating a vegetable by itself), meat is not cut, unless in a salad, and bread is not buttered.
The denominator, “enjoyment,” has only one coefficient and one variable: the volume of food being consumed and how much you enjoy its taste, respectively.
Well, DUH! Of course enjoyment equals TV!
Obviously, volume is not up for debate and taste preferences most certainly are. It is intuitive that more food equals a larger denominator and thus a smaller value for the WTE and, just as with Calories, the lower the number, the better.
Some of the classic cases of the WTE will be analyzed here, such as pasta, salads and sandwiches, hot wings (ribs are analogous with this example), and crab legs.
- Pasta generally receives one of the lower (better) values, provided that the consumer likes the taste of pasta. Many different sauces are possible and thus can change the taste value. More importantly, very little work is required to eat pasta. There is usually no cutting, and one can virtually shovel the food in. At the end, hands are usually clean and a quick wipe of the napkin around the mouth gets rid of “tomato sauce lipstick.”
- Salads and sandwiches are swing foods. A swing food, by definition, is whether or not the consumer will take into consideration the amount of work required to prepare the food (these foods take a lot of preparation). The classic definition of WTE excludes this factor, but some people must make their own food, and the WTE has been revised in light of that. The undeniably redeeming quality of salads and sandwiches is their versatility, which almost always results in a high enjoyment value, no matter who the consumer is. The different combinations of ingredients are essentially endless, so look for a large denominator (this is also the case with chili). And the work is next to nothing if preparation is excluded. The only deal-breaker comes in the form of a messy sandwich that requires multiple napkins and sometimes even extensive hand-washing.
- Hot wings will often have a rather unappealingly high WTE because of the work required. Enjoyment values have been maximized with the introduction of new sauces (such as honey BBQ, sweet Thai chili, teriyaki, etc.), but the amount of work tends to turn off everyone except those people who really love spicy food. Hot wings are usually record-setters in terms of napkins, and wet napkins/soap and water is required for cleanup of both hands and mouth. Finally, extensive work (and skill) is needed to be able to clean all of the meat off without wasting too much. Thank goodness for the boneless wing.
- Not many people eat crab legs.
Photo Credits
Dog: http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/tumblr_ll21u7wZzK1qk3h3co1_400.jpg
Person: http://howstuffworks.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/man-eating-pasta.jpg
Ryan’s Road Rules Rule
Posted: June 23, 2012 Filed under: Essays | Tags: Driving, Pedestrians, Roads, Rules 2 Comments »[If THAT guy is on my side, maybe I would want to meet him in a dark alley. I might need to be saved from a different, meaner guy who also happens to be in that dark alley.]
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It’s gradually been brought to my attention that some of the rules and conventions of our driving system kinda blow. Let me secondly say that, overall, I’m very pleased how things work on the road. Ever since I was younger than I am now, I’ve wondered how such an intricate network of roads, signs, and unpredictable people continues to operate with a relatively small number of goof-ups. Sure, people break the laws all the time and get into accidents, but the fact that it’s limited to that is impressive. In other words, you don’t see many “purposes,” like the ones you see in action movie car chases. The point is, the majority of us are trying to stay safe and keep a clean record, so we learn the rules and then creatively break them…like artists and stuff.
With that being said, a few things do very much bug me
Not actually part of the list, but this bothers me and is a pun.
about the way we drive and the rules we have to follow. All three of them would require a major shift in the system, so I will try to remain patient. But since none of this even seems to be in the talks, I’m going to start making some noise.
1. Stop giving pedestrians so much right-of-way.
Driving can be hard and requires a large amount of focus. Walking is not hard and requires little to no amount of focus (for most of us). Think about what it takes to stop a car going 30 mph. Now think about what it takes to stop walking. I feel like there shouldn’t be much debate there. Where there will be controversy is why I think we should put the responsibility on the pedestrians. If driving requires us to monitor so many things at once (car function, road signs, other drivers), wouldn’t it make sense to lift at least one burden (pedestrians) off of them if we can? When you’re walking around, you’re already supposed to look both ways before crossing, so why isn’t the law that you should simply have to wait if a car is coming?
I got caught at this intersection during the photoshoot. Talk about no regard for other people. It took them 4 hours to cross the street. I missed dinner, missed the game. And the worst part was, they didn’t even look before crossing!
You might be thinking to yourself, “Ryan, that’s just really lazy on your part because you don’t like stopping for pedestrians.” Well I’m a pedestrian almost as much as I’m a driver, so stop thinking that. While walking, I gladly stop for cars when they’re driving by because I don’t want to go to the hospital and because it’s really bad on gas for your car to come to a complete stop and start right back up (hopefully you weren’t reading this run-on aloud). And if you can give me a good old-fashioned money-saving reason, I’m pretty much on your side. Now I’ll admit, college has definitely jaded me with this stuff. I’ve had it with people crossing (not even in a crosswalk) right in front of me without even looking if there are cars coming. Still, I think this idea makes sense. We should definitely keep it the same at traffic lights because being a pedestrian is good for the earth and we need to reward them. But don’t give them too much power anywhere else because they’ll take advantage of it and be careless.
2. The “Pass this on” honk
Can you think of a time when you’ve been in the passing lane of a highway and someone five cars in front of you is going JUST the speed limit? You want that person to move into the slow lane, but there’s no way of communicating that. You shouldn’t honk because it’s not the fault of the driver directly in front of you. Or maybe you could if there was a second tone on your horn that said, “Driver, I’m not angry at you. Please don’t take offense to this honk. Instead, take it and pass it on to the yahoo up there who’s costing me my record time.” And if every car were equipped with this feature, the next guy could receive your message and relay it ahead. Then the person directly behind the slow driver could bust out the prolonged, angry honk.
The driver of the middle car in this photoshoot demanded I put that text in there or else he wouldn’t have consented to this.
Unfortunately, I see two potential issues with this system. First, people might confuse it with an angry honk and a) take offense or b) get startled and do something dangerous (like swerving or whatever, I don’t know). But, if the horn is a less aggressive and very distinct tone, hopefully people would get used to it and its implication in short time. Second, if the problem driver is very far up, there would be lots of horn honking and noise pollution, perhaps even drowning out the sound of an alerting horn during an actual emergency. Since me wanting you to get out of the passing lane isn’t as urgent as I want it to be, this alternate noise could always be quieter than the original horn and other sirens, so the more important one would take precedence. And this may not even end up being an issue. Let’s just worry about that after it starts causing problems.
3. More jughandles!
“Jughandles are the single greatest piece of civil engineering in the history of roads.”
-Ham, 2011
For those of you who aren’t familiar with jughandles, here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jughandle
Don’t look at the other photos on Google Image; they make it seem so complicated.
Basically, it’s a different way to do a left* turn at a busy intersection. Instead of having an extra lane and a protected green light for left turns, you turn off the highway and so that you can go straight across. At very busy intersections, the left-turn-only lane can be too short and crowded. The jughandle is a much more relaxed and spacious way to do lefts. Additionally, there aren’t as many overlapping traffic light rotations, and the road is actually narrower, making it easier for pedestrians to cross! I’m trying to make it up to them, as you can see. But aside from that, there are other important reasons for this stance. In fact, most of the disadvantages of jughandles stem from people not being familiar with them, so in time, those would disappear. Finally, the most concrete reasoning is…they have them all throughout the state of New Jersey! I grew up with them. I’m used to them. Therefore, everyone should change their ways so life is easier for me. That will be all.
*In Britain, this would be known as a “right” turn.
A Scientist, a Dog, and a Bible
Posted: May 9, 2012 Filed under: Comical Works | Tags: Apocalypse, Mayans, movies Leave a comment »{Today is Day Three of PB&Jiorle’s 3-day Extrav-Bloganza. Don’t forget about the previous two installments.}
[UFC claims to be “As Real as it gets.” I’d like to see them try and tell that to the streets.]
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As I type this message, we are 225 days away from being dead. Allegedly. Or maybe we won’t all die on December 21, 2012, but shit’s going to start flying out of a blender and into the fan. At least that’s what people keep telling me the Mayans said. However, I’m not worried for two reasons:
- If the Mayans were so smart, how come they’re dead? Either they weren’t as awesome as we thought, their gods actually saved them from this planet, or you have no choice but to believe that what the people on Ancient Aliens say is true and extraterrestrials scooped them up. And I would imagine most of you will arrogantly refuse to believe the third option. The way I see it, no one put it better than Squidward Tentacles in the “Pizza Delivery” episode of Spongebob Squarepants:
- “Will you stop talking about the stupid pioneers [Mayans]? Have you noticed that there are none of them left? That’s because they were lousy hitchikers [Prophets], ate coral [I don’t know, probably fruit and stuff], and took directions from algae [the stars, spiritual direction that is]! And now you’re telling me they thought they could drive [predict]…rocks [the apocalypse].” As you can see, it all matches up pretty well.
Apocalypse or not, this pizza WILL be delivered!
- “Will you stop talking about the stupid pioneers [Mayans]? Have you noticed that there are none of them left? That’s because they were lousy hitchikers [Prophets], ate coral [I don’t know, probably fruit and stuff], and took directions from algae [the stars, spiritual direction that is]! And now you’re telling me they thought they could drive [predict]…rocks [the apocalypse].” As you can see, it all matches up pretty well.
- Even if there is going to be some cataclysmic event on “Remember, Remember, the 21st of December,” I’m confident that we as a creative people are fully prepared to deal with whatever flavor of doomsday the Mayan space gods choose. There have been so many post-apocalyptic movies that I might need to write a 2nd volume for this piece to adequately prove my point that we now possess the solution to any “world-ending” event. Catastrophic weather? No problem. Virally-produced zombies? Give me a break (seriously, a break from those movies would be nice). Nuclear war or whatever? I’m not worried.
I’ll give a few examples of what we’ll need to do in the case of the more obvious apocalypses. Feel free to tell me if I missed any classics…which I almost certainly did.
Flavor #1: Catastrophic Climate Change/Weather
Solution Manual: The Day After Tomorrow
X-Factor: Dennis Quaid…Well generally speaking, a scientist
I’d first like to thank Dennis Quaid for debunking the original notion that increased atmospheric CO2 will automatically and ultimately lead to global warming. Scientists now correctly refer to it as climate change because intense cooling could result1. But thanks to The Day After Tomorrow—even if initial global warming creates a negative feedback loop via the cessation of the North Atlantic Oscillation, causing the next ice age—we’ll know exactly what to do. As long as we have a loose cannon paleoclimatologist who has a shaky relationship with his son Sam that he needs to rescue at all costs, we’ll be just fine. And with all of the publicity surrounding global climate change, I’m sure there’s at least one scientist (or a group, it might take a half dozen of them to equal Dennis Quaid’s character Jack Hall) who will take the right steps to prepare our world as it approaches the brink of “too late.”
All in a day’s work for a paleoclimatologist
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- For an explanation, see a review of the North Atlantic Oscillation. Or better yet, just watch/re-watch The Day After Tomorrow; the science isn’t actually that terrible.
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Flavor #2: Viral Zombies
Solution Manual: I am Legend (and probably 4,000 others)
X-Factor: Sam the dog…Well generally speaking, a dog
I have never trusted the measles, and it may have taken until the release of I am Legend to figure out exactly why. Provided that nobody tries to genetically alter this virus into a cure for cancer, we may even be able to AVOID the apocalypse scheduled for December 21, 2012. But if another virus creates zombies out of the American public (note, TV is NOT a virus), we have the guidance of Hollywood giant Will Smith to initiate the change back to normalcy. And most people would be satisfied with giving him all the credit, but I’m not. Humans can’t just live by themselves for an extended period of time. They go crazy. So if it weren’t for the companionship of Sam the dog, Will Smith’s virologist character Robert Neville likely never would have stayed sane long enough to come up with the antidote. Now we see that, although the scientist is important for overcoming apocalypses, a character named Sam (here, a dog) seems equally important as the catalyst for the resolution.
More like man’s ONLY friend
Flavor #3: Nuclear War
Solution Manual: The Book of Eli
X-Factor: a Bible…Well specifically speaking, a Bible that you can feel
In a society of small settlements that have reverted to the barter system, the road to intellectual recovery seems nonexistent. Hi-jackers abound, and only two people that we can see give two hoots about reading! This kind of makes sense since survival and luxury are no longer guarantees, but come on! Rest assured, though. We can thank the Lord for the “heir-to-the-throne-of-Morgan-Freeman” Denzel Washington and his mission. Or else the Holy Bible—the key to rebuilding a society of morals and enlightenment—could have fallen into the hands of one evil Gary Oldman. Fortunately for us, Denzel’s old school (before the “flash”) character Eli and the voice telling him to go west shed some light on how to handle an apocalypse of this nature. Take a man of faith, give him the word of God and he’ll keep on walking toward a much brighter (figuratively, not literally) future. Just make sure this man is willing to protect the Word and kick some ass, no matter what the situation may be.
I’m on a mission from God. Now please, four fried chickens and coke.
As it stands now, it appears that no matter what type of apocalypse they try to hit us with, a dedicated scientist, a lovable dog, and a very specific Bible should be sufficient for keeping mankind alive and functioning. And as safety precautions, someone named Sam and actor Dash Mihok should not be left out, as both appear in the films The Day After Tomorrow AND I am Legend. It could be a coincidence, but with this much on the line, I’d rather not take a chance.
Giving up Complaining is the Worst!
Posted: May 8, 2012 Filed under: Essays | Tags: Complaining, espn, MTV, VH1 Leave a comment »{Today is Day Two of PB&Jiorle’s 3-day Extrav-Bloganza.}
[People who incessantly make fun of Canada are probably insecure about their patriotism.]
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Complaining is the best. That’s why giving up complaining is the worst. However, nobody else likes to listen to complaining unless he or she or ze can relate to the complaint. What follows is a discourse on some of the grumbling that I hear over and over again. And you’ll be able to tell by how I address it that it is, in fact, something to which I CANNOT relate. The content may seem a bit outdated, if only because we at Peanut Butter & Jiorle try not to make too many waves given our already small but faithful following (and it took some time on my part to build up the courage to publically criticize people). However, the message is fairly universal and will not change in the near future…unless this piece becomes famous enough to change some minds.
Personally, I do love to complain, and I am extremely thankful for the people who are willing to listen for a while and then tell me when I become too ridiculous. But I have built the belief that the only type of worthwhile whining is about things you cannot change. It feels great, and it is often better getting those super-charged thoughts out than letting them fester in your mind. On the other hand, if you have the power to change something unpleasant in your life, get on and do it; complaining about it is a waste of time and energy. For example, if you don’t like the nonsense that dominates television or the radio, there are many things you can try to do to change that. It may not work, but at least it has a chance of being productive.
It appears that people most often complain about what’s on television these days, specifically what the sports channels cover. And I’m sure that people know how television works: news and sports writers will cover what the majority of people want to hear. So it seems almost paradoxical that the sports anchors are still talking about Tim Tebow when apparently everyone is sick of hearing about Tim Tebow (although I’m not, admittedly). If no one cares anymore, they would stop watching TV when he’s being covered, right? Almost. The people who claim to hate media hyper-focusing are the ones who seem follow this stuff the most closely so they can have specific and knowledgeable topics to complain about. Thus, the repetition of the same news stories (not just in sports) gets looped over because people have no reason to come up with anything new. They get the same ratings regardless of whether or not Adam Schefter has received any new insider text messages in the last ten minutes.
“I can say WHATEVER I want.”
I often hear people claim, “What happened to sports, man? Back in the day, it used to be just about the sports. Now all they talk about are allegations, arrests, and controversy.” Well that’s because, deep down, that’s what we will give the most attention to. That’s why we follow athletes on Twitter in the first place. Now I don’t mean to exclude myself from this; I love watching crap that fires me up just so I can go yell about it to one of my friends. However, I would be much better off if they replaced the instigating with something more educational. In all honesty, I would love to know what makes some pitchers better than others or what all the penalties in hockey are. Granted, changing the nature of sports media coverage is a pretty tall order, but don’t underestimate the power of individual action. If you’re not satisfied with it, don’t watch it. Pick between Around the Horn and PTI. They’re the exact same show, except one is a show with points that don’t matter and one is a show with no points at all.
“That’s right, the points are like the combined value of Mel Kiper and Todd McShay’s jobs.”
To avoid being too repetitious and irritating, I’ll try to lump the rest of my complaining about complaining into one more point. The one that you all should have been expecting from the start is reality shows on MTV and VH1. That sort of grumbling has being going on since Peanut Butter & Jiorle was still a twinkle in Ryan’s eye. We all know the quips like, “Gee, they sure show a lot of music on MTV. You know, Music Television?” or, “Remember when MTV and VH1 actually used to show music videos?” If I had to guess, I’d say the blame goes equally between both the networks and the viewers. The Real World was probably too good of an idea and should not have appeared on MTV. Of course it never takes off without the help of viewers drooling over it, but they really ran with it and have refused to let go of the idea in recent years.
So if people really want music videos over reality TV, why hasn’t it happened yet? My speculation is actually just the speculation of a friend of mine from North Carolina. He pointed out that, despite all of our nostalgic complaints about “Pop-Up Video,” few people would watch music videos if they were put back on TV. And this, unfortunately, is completely our fault. Why take the chance of being forced to watch a new music video that you don’t care about when you could go on Youtube and watch exactly the music video you’re in the mood for?
It’s a tenuous connection, sure, but it makes sense. Instant streaming has probably made us too impatient to sit through the Top 20 Video Countdown when all we want to see is #4. In conclusion, for reasons of both nostalgia and futility, this is something we’ll probably have to accept. *Unless you actually think you can change your ways and give up Youtbe.* So, for this one, go ahead and complain because I agree with you.
*Try to picture me sounding as condescending as physically possible.
There’s a Time and Place for Everything, Including Never and Nowhere
Posted: September 12, 2012 | Author: rpjiorle | Filed under: Essays | Tags: comments, dreams, forums, Internet | 1 Comment »[I was never worried about the Earth running out of resources, and then I saw that my 32-gigabyte iPod had only 4 gigabytes of space left. Don’t think it can’t happen!]
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Almost 100% of the time, a person wants to know what happened. And I mean that in the most general sense. All of us want to feel informed when it comes to politics, music, and celebrity news. But for most of us, the desire stops at just that. Or, I can say with confidence, “That’s where it stops for me.” Of course I want to know what people think about the content of a Youtube video or a sports article. The absolutely last thing I want to know is what one commenter thinks of another comment. Few things in existence make me lose faith in the world like a bunch of people snapping back and forth at each other under a comment board for a music video. Sometimes I just want to know how the general public feels about a new rule being instituted in the MLB or how to decode what a politician is actually saying in a decidedly nebulous speech. But those rare comments quickly get washed away and buried under pages of, “It’s clear that your parents beat you over the head with the lid of a trash can and that you should just go crawl in a hole and have someone bury you alive.” I just want to know when Football Player X is going to come back from his injury. If I wanted to know how many ways the Internet community could devise for you to kill yourself, I would go…well, I guess I can go pretty much anywhere on the Internet. Here’s a recent example (The comments may change, but boy were they bad when I read them)
(Time for a digression) And that’s the sad point: I don’t want to know any ways for you to kill yourself. No matter who the reader of this blog is—whether black or white; male, female, or other identifications; good or evil—I don’t want you to kill yourself. EVER. Now you can question my patriotism all you want, but my faith as a Christian trumps everything. So when I found out Osama Bin Laden was killed, I wasn’t sluggin’ beers and singing “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” (Although it is a good song, one I haven’t sung since my days at Andover Morris School.) Sure I was happy to see some sort of closure on such a horrific matter. But deep down, you know what I wanted? I wanted Bin Laden to have this insane change of heart where he repents all the bad things he had done. And using his family’s money, he opens up a huge network of sustainable schools to educate impoverished Afghan children. If you’re going to hope and pray for something that you essentially have no control over, you might as well think positive, right? Killing him gave Obama and the rest of us something to brag about, but it didn’t bring anyone back from the dead. But in my ideal fantasy world, the best case scenario is some super evil dude turning over a new leaf and saving lives for the future.
Anyway, I have this vision about Internet comment sections. I have a feeling some of you reading this are also sick of seeing the comments for a Snoop Dogg song devolve into petty arguments about existentialism or the existence of a higher power. This vision I have, I don’t know how possible it is. But I’m thinking positive, you know? The idea is as follows. There are monitors—automatic if possible—that scan through the comments of an online video or news article. If the comment is directed at another person and (using some algorithm) has below a certain threshold of relevance to the webpage, it is redirected to some faraway forum somewhere else on the World Wide Web.
This guy looks like he’s got it under control.
All the senseless and irrelevant comments can go to the same place because, in the end, it doesn’t matter where the comments came from. They’re all about people being sacks of shit or being retarded (I don’t think that word should be used in a derogatory manner; I’m trying to fix myself, too). If the World Wide Web was a bathroom, this forum for unnecessary comments would be that dark corner behind the toilet—with pubes, Q-tips, pads, and the like.
A corollary of this vision is that I hope some really adept programmer/hacker reads this entry. Then he or she or ze will be inspired to make this happen. There was a tweet some girl sent out about how Obama needs to be assassinated. First of all, no he doesn’t. Nobody should ever be assassinated. But the other thing that struck me as frustrating was that people were responding to that tweet by saying that she needs to die. I hope I’m not the only one who sees a problem in this logic. I also hope there are people out there more driven than I am. I miss seeing comments that praise musicians and suggest to the world other artists who they think are even better. Or something that’s relevant to the topic but extremely silly. Both of those get thumbs-ups from me.
Photo Credits
Robot: http://redgage-photos.s3.amazonaws.com/kronobot/kronobotworkinginoffice1.jpg
Like: http://www.mikogo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/youtube-thumbs-up.jpg
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