Word of Mouth #6: Deafheaven - Sunbather

Deafheaven - Sunbather on YouTube

'Sunbather' is a release courtesy of Deathwish Inc. (yes, them again, and god damn it is it glorious).

Yeah, I'm spreading the word about the album that Metacritic, Pitchfork Magazine, Spin Magazine, and Rolling Stone Magazine are declaring the top metal album of 2013. Indeed, its score on Metacritic is a whopping 92 percent, based on 17 critic reviews. The "Best Albums of 2013" page (click here for source) states: "It's the first time a metal album has occupied the #1 slot in our year-end rankings."

Anyway, as I listen to this now, I am astounded at just how texturally rich this release is. I'm four tracks in and I have heard post-rock, black metal, shoegazing, post-hardcore, orchestral, psychedelic, and surely many other wakes of music...so far. Last year's "The Seer" by the legendary avant-garde outfit Swans evoked a similar, inaccessible sound that, without understating it, mindfucks the listener into gleefully masochistic submission.

Is this a review? No. It's a means of spreading the word. Many have heard of Deafheaven's praise by now, and may think I'm riding a bandwagon by publishing this piece, but I'm fucking thrilled to do so. These guys deserve not only your attention, but your recognition for the hard, complex work the guys have put into this release.

Word of Mouth #5: Future Of The Left - How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident

Future of the Left - Bread, Cheese, Bow and Arrow on Soundcloud

Future of the Left - How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident (Full Album) on YouTube

From the album 'How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident', released through the band's own label Prescriptions Music.

Holy shit...

This one dropped this past October, and somehow I only became privy to its existence tonight, after watching TheNeedleDrop's video review on this album. In retrospect, I feel deprived of stimulating aural bliss from works like these. So anyway, after watching the video review, I checked them out, given that he mentioned the band's past works (McLusky was name-dropped) and the music seemed genuinely interesting just from his description of the music within this album. With all of that in mind, and getting hooked just from the opening song (which I linked to up above), I came to really like this shit.

So I'll shut up about all that and tell you that if you haven't heard this album yet, and you think you could appreciate their music (if Anthony Fantano's review of the album is anything to go by at least), then GIVE IT A LISTEN. 

Oh and in closing; spread the word! I'm doing that here, and good god if you love music like this as well then you'd share the love, too.

Word of Mouth #4: Sandveiss - Scream Queen

 

 Sandveiss - Blindsided on Youtube

From the album 'Scream Queen', which is a self-released effort. You can purchase the album through their bandcamp page.

What a stunner! Sandveiss are a hard rock/stoner band, utilizing blues-rock riffs not unlike those of Kyuss & Queens of the Stone Age (those are always welcome). They come as a surprise to everyone (including myself) from straight out of Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

Revel in those riffs. Thanks, Sandveiss!

(I don't know how the "center" function doesn't work in this instance, but that's the best I can do at this point considering this image isn't widely available and the publisher's functions are wonky, to say the least)

Happy 20th Birthday DOOM!

Doom turned 20 years old today, and this post is to celebrate that milestone. This series remains one of my favourite, from all the way back to the time of its release. No other FPS game, for me at least, has hit the same notes as Doom still does to this day. It's simple but complex; at times scary but most of the time downright thrilling; has a simple but awesome array of weaponry; you travel through Hell; has a fantastic, very active, and most of all astonishingly creative modding community; and it's what a game needs to be: fun.

Here are a select few pictures to celebrate. And if you don't have this game, then why not? It's cheap, easy to attain, and the array of mods is so large and fantastic that you may just find what you're looking for if you just care to find it.

 

 

Thanks to emortal982.deviantart.com for this one.

Thanks to art.kracov.org for this one.

Word of Mouth #3: Doomriders - Grand Blood

 

Doomriders - Dead Friends on YouTube

From the album 'Grand Blood', courtesy of Deathwish Inc. (a quality Indie label run by Converge's Jacob Bannon, who plays alongside of Doomriders' own Nate Newton no less).

Did you catch the previous LP known as 'Darkness Come Alive'? Did you enjoy it? Then perhaps you'll have every reason to enjoy this one as well. While this isn't exactly a recent release anymore, given that it's been out for almost two months as of this writing, this band cannot be ignored. That's why this shoutout is for Nate Newton's side-output. 

On the topic of Converge, when their 'Live at the BBC' record drops in "early 2014", I'll shout out to them as well. I have to, given that they're easily one of my favourite musical acts around.

Enjoy, and spread the word!

Doomriders is Nate Newton, Jebb Riley, Chris Pupecki, and Q.

Word of Mouth #2: Samsara Blues Experiment - Waiting For The Flood

Samsara Blues Experiment - Waiting For The Flood on YouTube

From the album 'Waiting For The Flood', courtesy of Electric Magic records.

My second post in this series (however long it may last) is a shout out to a Blues & World inspired act from Berlin, Germany. This is the band's latest, 48-minute outing, released on November 14th of 2013. Given that the Blues is awesome all-around, and I have been looking around for new Blues releases, my stumbling upon the news of this release drove me to spread the word about this group and this release specifically.

Enjoy!

EDIT: Nabbed an image of the cover from a different location, because previous image couldn't be centered as desired.

Word of Mouth #1: Mutoid Man - "Helium Head"

 

Mutoid Man - Gnarcissist on YouTube

Stream the entire album on Soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/earsplit/sets/mutoid-man-helium-head

From the album 'Helium Head', courtesy of Magic Bullet Records.

Enjoy, and spread the word! This supergroup consists of the awesome man behind the kit at Converge & All Pigs Must Die, amongst others, and the voice that has carried Cave-In since their inception in the mid-90's.

Mutoid Man is Stephen Brodsky & Ben Koller.

A Pre-Viewing, Pre-Release Reaction to RoboCop (2014)

To drive the points I've made below home, I'll provide two of the main trailers for the film here. The release date of this film is wide in theatres & IMAX and on February 14, 2014:

RoboCop (2014) Trailer 1 (from the "MOVIES Coming Soon" channel):

RoboCop (2014) Trailer 2 (from the "Machinima" channel):

From what is portrayed in the trailers, the film misses the point of the original completely, which was both a multifaceted satire and a decent sci-fi film in its own right. There was a substantive reason for all of the violence and silly occurrences of the original, which was to lampoon the culture which created it in the first place. The themes were strong, such as what it is to be a man, and what it is to be a human being. It also heavily featured run-down sets because it portrayed a stunningly downtrodden near-future Detroit, and took place partially in poor neighborhoods, abandoned factories often taken over by powerful criminals, and the characters themselves were superficially human. It also spoke out against what corporate power can do to a community, by portraying OmniCorp as a rather villainous company willing to level a vast chunk of the city that was under-represented, highly-neglected, and overly exploited because of the desperation of the poor.

Hell, when it comes to the main character, (in the original film) Alex Murphy's brutal slaying in the line of duty managed to invoke a degree of sympathy because of just how over-the-top his death was. Instead of that, we see Alex Murphy getting injured from an explosion...in his driveway. It is a totally safe, unimaginative, totally spontaneous incident that flies in the face of the impact that death of Murphy produced from the 1987 classic. While one can safely assume the remake retains the following aspect, the original showed that Alex Murphy was a good, by-the-books cop willing to perform his duties to the teeth, and he got slaughtered for it in such a horrific fashion that you eagerly awaited justice to be exacted on the villains. Even more significant is that the man he was charged with bringing down had ties to the very same corporation that would revive him as the first RoboCop, which had the possibility of cementing his role not as a law enforcer out to protect the greater good, but to serve the whims of OmniCorp. In the end, he defied that, even being nearly destroyed and incapacitated when trying to stand up to the machinations of the company. He, managing to recover some ounce of humanity, intended in the end to stand by principles rather than by profit (indeed, his police force manages to operate solely because they negotiated a paying contract with OmniCorp, nullifying their ability to stand up to their benefactor's corruption and eventual tyranny), bringing down the corrupt power structure that both created him and sought to destroy him.

In this film (based on the trailers at least), characters appear to be clean and have lost the sad & rundown feel of the original (now, good luck feeling anything for anybody in this film); everyone knows exactly what they're doing it appears, whereas the original showed that they had some troubles getting the RoboCop project fully underway; backdrops look rather sanitized and have seemingly lost the nuanced appeal of the original (run-down and rather sad, as said above); it downplays the themes present in the original; there is no satire to be found (such as the rather ingenious commercials to be seen in the original film and its somewhat inferior sequel); the CGI behooves the new film of the visceral, raw nature of flesh melded with machine that managed to cement the original as a landmark entry amongst special FX titans; and Murphy's death in the remake could not possibly illicit a modicum of sympathy for him, let alone any real reaction given how generic and safe it is. I'm sure there are more problems that nobody will possibly see upon release, but at the same time it very well may have its strengths as well.

It just won't measure up to the 1987 classic, and even the somewhat inferior sequel. As Peter Weller said of the remake, (paraphrasing) it won't be able to do it (in comparison to the original).

With all this said & done, I will see this film come Valentine's Day, 2014. But as damned as I am for saying this, I know for sure that this film will end up a mediocre exercise in tedium, safely-played cinematic scope, and theme-deprived science fiction. Indeed, one of the major themes of the original wherein corporate greed & power is portrayed negatively, appears to have been reversed in a sense here and flat-out downplayed. But most importantly of all, how will the "remembering what it is to be a man, and a human" theme hold up in the remake? Will it eschew grandiose narrative and underlying thematic scope for sheer action and fall victim to executive meddling? We'll all see for ourselves on release day.

On the bright side I guess, it does have Samuel L. Jackson in it, so it's gotta be good, right?

Opportunistic Racism, Failed Anti-Theism

UPDATE: This is pretty late to the party I feel, and that can be attributed to the fact that I've largely forgotten about this blog. I've been quite distracted from literary pursuits for a while.

First of all, view the subject of this post here: Cult of Dusty: Black Christians = Uncle Toms. Or you can just watch it above (added with edit).

Cult of Dusty is one of those vitriolic opinion channels, or vloggers (he calls himself a comedian when necessary), run by an anti-theist at that, masquerading as an "entertainment" channel. At least, the aforementioned descriptor is the defense Dusty wields when he gets smacked hard for the profoundly idiotic things he will say & do in his videos.

Convenience is the way of the vitriolic, because if he were an honest man, he'd have remembered the Abolitionist Movement, which, for the uninitiated, aimed to abolish the widespread slavery of Africans. They were passionate about their goal to end enslavement of others, and considering that Martin Luther King's legacy has celebrated a half-century milestone this year, Dusty implicitly called Martin Luther King Jr., a man of faith, a fucking Uncle Tom. A race traitor. Consider this, given everything stated previously; the Abolitionists & Martin Luther King Jr. were Christians, very much so, and they stood up against slavery.

Don't forget the very progressive (for his time) founding father by the name of John Adams. He railed against slavery entirely, unlike one or two of the founding fathers every anti-theist likes to name (Washington & Jefferson).

There's a lot of things wrong with his methodology and I'll break down a few that are noticeable:

1) He takes the bible too literally
 For such a devout, outspoken anti-theist, he sure does a poor job of not lending credence to the religions he speaks out against. When you base entire arguments off of what holy books say, that means you're taking such works literally. By doing this, you're placing yourself on the flip-side of the same coin on which you'd find fundamentalist religious people. Inadvertently or not, you're giving power to the passages and ideas found within religious texts by taking them at their word, or in other words, literally. After all, aren't they works of embezzled fiction, according to the logic of anti-theists? If they are bullshit, as many anti-theists would tell you, then why would they use holy books and the writings within as major focal points for their arguments against religion?

Logic. What?

2) He's fucking racist, even though he implies he is not
By stating that Black Christians are Uncle Toms because of their faith (Christianity in this case), utilizing the rather piss-poor argument of quoting (and taking out of context in doing so) a number of passages in Leviticus and whatnot he's being racist. Keep in mind that none of the passages he quotes in his video explicitly describe black people, let alone white people enslaving blacks. He's basically arguing that black people are beholden, by some measure or whatever the fuck it is, to other black people. This is especially jarring considering that there have been anti-slavery figureheads who argued that black people are no different from white people. After all, the most significant difference (and also the most noticeable) between the two is the amount of melanin in the skin.

Dusty conveniently neglects to mention that (in spite of bringing up Samuel Jackson's character in the film Django Unchained, but that really seems to be the best that he can muster) a number of Africans sold out their brethren to slave owners. So much for the mantra, from Martin Luther King Jr., that people should be judged by their character rather than their skin colour. Perhaps he didn't get that memo?

3) He largely ignores the Abolitionist Movement, spearheaded by Christians
He says this, and it's the only passing remark he makes about it at all: "Believe it or not, there were actually a few people back then that said, "Hey! This is a bad idea we should not enslave our fellow human beings." That's it. Talk about being disingenuous! Consider that William Wilberforce, a by-the-books Christian, wrote this in one of his journals as a young man:

"God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation Manners.” 1


Also read the following:

After studying slavery, particularly the “Middle Passage”, Wilberforce jumped into action. “So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the Trade’s wickedness appear,” as Wilberforce told Parliament, “that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.” 1

What about Abbey Kelley Foster, a woman with a Quaker heritage, who was a strong proponent in the rise of the abolition movement? She had helped to begin and had served as a key speaker at the  National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1850 2.  While fervent in her anti-slavery stance, she was not one to censor her opponents, and thus she resigned from the more suppressive tenets of her movement in order to allow both sides to be heard. After she was ostracized from said movement, she went on to help establish the American Anti-Slavery Society. From then on out, "Abbey Kelleyism" became a new type of anti-slavery movement, describing a radical opposing stance on said issue.

Lucretia Mott, also having strong ties to Quakerism, was not only a strong supporter of women's rights (this was long, long before Women's Suffrage was passed in U.S. law, just so you know), would over a period of time deliver sermons about the abolitionist movement, women's rights, and other hot button issues of the time. She had once said of the "duty (that) was impressed upon me at the time I consecrated myself to that Gospel which anoints 'to preach deliverance to the captive, to set at liberty them that are bruised ..." 3. She helped the Free Produce Society boycott goods made by slaves, was an active & serving member of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, and helped lead slaves to free territory (such as Canada).

These noted few examples of exemplary opponents of slavery in an era rife with slave trading and ownership were Christians, spoke highly of the role of religion in removing this baneful treatment of fellow humans, and put into place a movement that would lead to radical change and even the Civil War.

But if you watch Dusty's video without your critical thinking switch on, you'd be none the wiser. His convenience at ignoring the Christians who actively fought against the slave trade is quite profound. Not to mention, he is either entirely ignorant of, or conveniently brushed aside the culturally significant I Have a Dream speech by Martin Luther King Jr., which contained the passage:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. 4

'Nuff said.

REFERENCES:

1: http://www.wilberforcecentral.org/wfc/Wilberforce/index.htm
2: http://www.wwhp.org/Resources/Biographies/KelleyFoster/1850.html
3: Greene, Dana (April 1981). "Quaker Feminism: The Case of Lucretia Mott". Pennsylvania History 48 (2): 149.
4: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/17/i-have-a-dream-speech-text_n_809993.html

I'm Being Silenced! Force Freedom of Speech (on Private Enterprise)!

Read the subject of this post here: http://amazingatheist.tumblr.com/post/58763857547/youtube-is-100-within-its-rights-to-remove-your

I've written about TJ a few times so far and each time I thought I've seen the worst of him, it seems that he tops himself a little later on, so I then feel the need to comment on him again.

The gist of the situation behind the linked Tumblr post is that a number of TJ's YouTube videos were flagged for removal. Now, no one knows the full story yet, perhaps neither does he, but it's safe to say even at this point that he is indeed being censored. The party responsible is unknown, but that's not really important. What is important is how he is reacting to the issue.

It's fine that he's notifying his more active followers to keep themselves posted on his other social media outlets, but in saying the following...

Let’s consider that for a moment. Should your phone company control what you say on the phone? Should your ISP control what you say online? Then why should YouTube get to control what you post on YouTube? 

If YouTube was a small, exclusive site, I think your argument would have merit. But YouTube is large enough now, culturally important enough now, that we must extend First Amendment protections to YouTube videos.

 ...he does himself no favors. To compare companies which provide actual services to that of websites, albeit with very high traffic (YouTube is ranked #3 by the Alexa Ranking System globally & in the U.S.), is fucking ridiculous. Memorandum to TJ: their site is their god damn private property, and they can set the terms of service for using their site(s) any way they damn well please.

Here is what he responded to. Keep in mind that it contains a bit of vitriol directed at him, but compared to what he's received from many other sources, it's pretty tame:

Youtube is 100% within its rights to remove your videos. They are a company. You are allowed to hold whatever (fucking stupid) opinions you wish, but they are IN NO WAY obligated to give you a platform from which to spout said (fucking stupid) opinions. Yes, I am "for real". I know you wish women didn't exist, but sadly for your sorry fat ass, they do.

Too bad for the big guy that the poster of the above (verbatim) paragraph is 100% correct regarding Youtube's rights on controlling content that populates what is their property. When TJ said that "if YouTube was a small, exlusive site, I think your argument would have merit", he threw in a non-sequitur; the size & reach of an entity in a market, except for utilities, does not serve as a barometer on whether said entity should be regulated in any way by the government. Instead, the function of a company is a category upon which to consider regulations of a private organization. Owned by Google (whose service I am using now, obviously), a private corporation, they are explicitly excluded from freedom of speech rights as declared by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The government has no ability to set limits, or even lift them completely, in the private sector.

And it should stay that way.

I assume that you, reader, have gleaned the aforementioned amendment within a valid copy of the document from which it can be found. In that case, I don't need to quote it to support my argument that TJ is either somehow ignorant of said amendment (the old-world English as used in said document may have threw him for a loop), or is outright cherry-picking it in order to advocate for the abolition of the barrier set in place by that same document. Given his nature as a money-hungry, fraudulent, shady motherfucker since, as an actual example, he's still wrapped in a controversy regarding his $17,000+ video embedding site (which went down within two months of launching, and has yet to return to full operating order as of this writing), I feel that he falls into the latter case.

An argument that pushes government mandates on freedom of speech rights within the private realm, be it the home of the Average Joe (provided it isn't owned by government assets and thus, being publicly-owned property), a small business, a web business, or anything along those lines, is an unsound argument. First of all, it violates the Constitution itself. Second, because YouTube (and Google, henceforth) are accessed by users throughout the world and their assets are not exclusively rooted in the United States (in spite of being founded in Menlo Park, California), it would be a burden to legally impose Free Speech laws on YouTube alone because it would have to be applied distinctly according to the rights (or lack thereof) of each country which grants access to the site. Google's monetary assets are extremely high, and they could challenge such wasteful theoretical scenarios with the best legal teams their money could buy.

TheAmazingAtheist, an admitted Social Libertarian (mind you that within the same context, Social Liberal is virtually synonymous with that position), who held starkly Libertarian views on economics, essentially wishes for the government (his government, mind you) to re-write the Constitution so as to mandate freedom of speech laws on the private sector, particularly YouTube/Google. Keep in mind that this is not out of principle, but rather out of necessity, for him. He doesn't care about the experience of others, but that of his own, since the guy is laughably dependent on his earnings through Google AdSense via YouTube partnership. He's also a shameless beggar who comes up with sob stories or snake oil sales schemes to bilk money out of his more naive subscribers. His channel is, due to a large number of his uploaded videos being flagged down, likely going to be on the chopping block and he is understandably in panic mode.

But arguing for the intervention of the Government to protect his right to a platform and to speak freely on what is the property of a private corporation is not only desperately reaching, it's sadly hilarious. I hope he realizes just how idiotic his response was to the user who posted that comment on his Tumblr, because if that were enacted in the U.S., then it would set a bad precedent of yet conceived proportions. I feel bad for the guy because he's a weak-willed individual with seemingly few principles, if any at all, and will say or do anything to avoid having to get a fucking job like most people do. After all, people who work earn their money, but he has to beg for it. He's 28 fucking years old and he asks for handouts in ways no different than teenagers, but the difference between he and teenagers is that he manages to sell himself doing it.

Absentia review (2011, Horror/Mystery/Thriller, Mike Flanagan, Fallback Plan Productions/Blue Dot Productions)

Seventy-thousand dollars, and we get this hidden gem.

Granted, that is an estimate as far as the web (IMDB's "Box Office" section for the film notes this) is concerned, but if there's a significant grain of truth in that number, then it's quite something. But you may be wondering just why I am harping on this point instead of getting to the point?

The point is that this film is remarkable given its barebones budget. Just think about it: George Romero produced the 1968 horror classic Night of the Living Dead on a $114,000 budget. I don't know what that figure is when you adjust for inflation, but it's quite a bit more than what Mike Flanagan, the director/writer of Absentia, had to work with, and this was done in 2011.

Regardless, the film excels in so many ways in spite of that heavily-restrictive budget. For one, it's a far cry from the typical cheap scares & tricks of the genre today. Instead, the film has a slow, but deliberate pacing to it, building the tension for you to experience throughout the film. When any "in your face" horror does appear, it is appropriate and not forced just to try and get a rise out of the audience.

There's also a bit of drama to experience as well. The premise is that Tricia (Courtney Bell, also involved in the production of the film), eight months pregnant, has nearly finished grieving over the loss of her highschool sweetheart & husband seven years prior. Or so she hopes to believe. When she has to declare him legally dead (in absentia), her guilt comes to haunt her. Her guilt takes on the form of an emaciated, ghoulish-looking image of her husband. As for the reason she's seeing him, it is left up to the viewer's interpretation. As for her situation that may be causing her emotional duress, she's pending delivery of her unborn baby, and creeping unease is haunting her over the course of the film; could she feel guilty for having slept with a man while her husband was still missing? Does she feel that her husband, her teenage-sweetheart, should have been the father? Or could she truly be over the grieving process regarding her loss? That's for you to decide.

In the meantime, her younger sister Callie (Katie Parker) has returned from her status as a drifter searching for answers as to the meaning of life, among other things. Apparently recovering from drug abuse and trying to cope with her own problems through prayer, Callie nonetheless reignites the sister-sister bond with Tricia in their respective times of need. Supportive of her sister when she needs her most, Callie is an important piece of the puzzle in the plot of the film.

However, as time goes on, disappearances occur in their immediate neighborhood, and old cases open up anew, bringing tingling questions with them. To go on further, though, would be to spoil the film unjustly.

First of all, there's no elaborate special effects to be found throughout the film. If you're one of those viewers who needs spectacular visual displays to occur at one point or another, then you're going to be gravely disappointed in this one. Also, as I've mentioned, the film has a deliberate, prodding pace, and it may bore the less attentive of viewers quite a bit. Unlike most horror films ever made, Absentia presents the horror elements through tense buildup, and rather clever release (monsters showing up & other engaging scenes) sparsely.

You're also likely not going to feel like the film has been resolved. What really happened by the end of the film? Did people really disappear without a trace, or did they run away for a life anew? Is there a message, a theme overlying the plot of the film that could explain the rash of people in absentia? What about the thing in the tunnel?

Admirably, the plot is actually rather semi-linear, in that it presents alternate threads throughout the events that unfold. Some may take this as the filmmakers lacking confidence in the storyline they were writing, but I think the filmmakers were rather trying to give the audience the means to come to their own interpretation(s). It's something that is sorely lacking in this overburdened genre that lacks true tension and creativity. Remember when horror was both stunning and surprising? Yeah, it's been a long ass time.

I enjoyed the minimalistic soundtrack as well. There's a low, downbeat dark ambient tune that plays throughout most of the film, and it helps establish the mysterious mood that permeates its duration. A few scenes break what could have been a monotonous soundtrack with light rock songs, cleverly integrated into the activities the characters are actually engaging in (in one scene, Callie is jogging while listening to a track on her MP3 player; a little later, she takes off her headphones and the song dies down). 

Couple the intelligent brand of horror, the open-ended plotline, the down-to-earth characters, and the minimalistic but appropriate soundtrack, Absentia is a showcase of what to do with a horror film, no matter the budget & personnel limitations. Those latter two elements of film-making are not good excuses for churning out recycled crap that generates so much mockery of this genre that possesses enormous opportunities.

B+

The Good:

+ Down-to-earth, obscure actors present believable, at-times sympathetic performances.

+ In spite of the miniscule budget, there seemed to be a very natural, stress-free approach taken to the film. Nothing is overly forced or hammy.

+ A subtle breed of horror that builds tension, then shocks the audience without abusing such things for spectacle sake.

+ Open-ended, semi-linear plotline that is open to interpretation.

+ No overt special effects.

The Bad:

- May leave some viewers unsatisfied with the ending.

Rage Against the Capital Punishment Machine (Link)

Copyright © Superbious.com and Garrett Will 2012-2013 All Rights Reserved. 

Take a gander at the goods

Dumber Ingredients for a Dumber Consumer (Link)

Copyright © Superbious.com and Garrett Will 2012-2013 All Rights Reserved. 

Give it a shot

So this is my last post for now, because I'm leaving this dump I've reluctantly called home for the past eight months. I don't know how long I'll be, but I'm guessing a couple weeks of absence at the most. Until then, adios.

Upcoming Superbious article teaser: "Dumber Ingredients for a Dumber Consumer"

I've submitted a piece that will tackle the issue of over-simplified ingredients lists replacing the functional, thorough ones which include IUPAC systematic names, like "sodium chloride" (which is commonly known as "table salt"), or "potassium sorbate", amongst many others. I'll loosely elaborate below.

There's a mindset where a consumer will avoid purchasing an article of food if they read an ingredients list consisting of any number of ingredients they cannot pronounce, nor that they understand of their purpose & composition. Many of such are ignorant (wilfully or otherwise), indoctrinated by the media or disingenuous nutritionists (often a combination of such, since nutritionists are provided platforms to share information with audiences), or are simply put off by the complexities therein. A basic understanding of chemistry should be in order and would be an appropriate response to this mindset, right? Well, this isn't a perfect world.

It's certainly true that there are ingredients that are questionable in their use, but generally speaking, not all inorganic compounds found in our foods are malign. Plus, one should not be intimidated by them simply because they cannot read, verbally or mentally, their chemical names. As I mention in the article (which should be available tomorrow as of this writing), vitamin B12's IUPAC name is "cyanocobalamin", and for anyone under the ill effects of the above-mentioned mindset, that name, if found on an ingredients list, may be off-putting. A simple solution, especially in this digital age considering that consumers are sometimes armed with tablets or smartphones, would be to do research on the spot. But you can't always expect people to take responsibility. Sometimes, unfortunately (for the sake of the market), people with such mindsets, whether they peddle it or not, may make waves through the media. Such press can be damaging to a food company's PR image, so they act on restoring it any way they can.

Without getting much further, since the upcoming article will be the primary entanglement of this discussion, these food companies are responding by dumbing down ingredients list. If the trend continues, and more troubling, worsens over time, then you won't see such items as "potassium sorbate", but rather just salt. Instead of telling you what is actually in the tomato sauce dotting the frozen pizza you're buying, it'll just say tomato sauce. And that's the problem I tackled, for your (eventual) reading pleasure.

EA Wins "The Consumerist: Worst Company in America" TWICE IN A ROW

I know Electronic Arts is a shitty game distributor/publisher which regularly practices shady shit like micro-transactions where they need not be, persistent-online DRM (always have to be connected to EA's servers in order to even play, and in the case of the latest SimCity, your files are not stored clientside so get ready ot lose your shit often!), and locking out content you otherwise have on game discs in order to bilk even more money out of customers. In spite of these things, and indeed there's more bullshit to EA than listed above, they are a GAME COMPANY.

You are not forced to buy games for any reason whatsoever, and they are a hobby. If you participate in what's called Major League Gaming, then you consider it an e-sport. Otherwise, you do not need them to live. You don't prolong your lifespan by "consuming" them. You hardly even grow as a person by playing them. You just stimulate your mind with bright colours, loud noises, and (mostly) minor quibbles of plotlines here and there.

Yet at The Consumerist, who runs polls every year for its readers to vote for the worst company in America, EA won this distinction two years in a row. Readers allotted 78% of the votes to Electronic Arts, with Bank of America coming in a distant second and with Comcast light-years further. It is the FIRST company ever to achieve this at The Consumerist. Keep in mind, that Bank of America lost with nearly half the votes last year. This year, Bank of America lost again with even less votes.

So here's the summary: Monsanto and that lot continue to erode nearly every market connected to the agriculture industry (which covers just about all of it), oil & natural gas companies are spearing ahead with pipelines that will inevitably fuck up, banks continue to abuse peoples' finances and take their properties away, pharmaceutical outfits trudge onward with their status as legal drug cartels, and telecommunications companies like Comcast and AT&T assault freedom of information & customer satisfaction every day.

EA, however, releases shitty or unfinished games (SimCity should rile you up), forces their customers to deal with persistent-online DRM, forcing customers use their knock-off of Steam (Origin) to even play with their products in the first place, they bilk customers out of more money by hiding content you already possess, PERMANENTLY ban paying customers "by accident", and they adore the machine-gun vomit of superfluous and pointless DLC. All of that might seem bad if you didn't read anything before them, but they affect VIDEO GAMES. I like games myself, and consider myself a mid-core gamer (I'm not casual, but I'm not hardcore either), but I have priorities.

The Consumerist, please help your readers whose priorities are so skewed and non-grounded in reality to realize just what is important in life. If you don't like EA, STOP BUYING THEIR GAMES! Simple resolution for a small-time issue. Just more proof that a handful of gamers are, dare I say it, clueless idiots irredeemably lost in fantasy land. Man-children, perhaps?