Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 7/12
Death Valley Officials Have Asked Tourists to Stop Frying Eggs on Rocks and Pavement
OK, those National Park Rangers just don’t want to let tourists have any fun! I mean, why are we going to Death Valley National Park if not to engage in science experiments that…don’t work?
Turns out that you can’t just fry an egg on the pavement. It isn’t quite that hot. You could do it if you have a frying pan and the video that is inspiring all of this failed egg frying even mentions that it doesn’t work without one but facts are unimportant when you are trying to do science!
Check out the SCIENCE!
Cleaning up after yourself is also, apparently, unimportant. Better to just leave eggshells and unfried eggs all over the place because you were too stupid to follow directions.
The message here is clear: don’t tell people how to do cool science experiments because they will probably just fuck it up.
Alphabetical Movie – The Long Kiss Goodnight
I’m pretty far behind on Alphabetical movie blogging and I blame this film.
See, I just don’t know what to write about this movie. Every time I sit down to write about the movie, I can’t figure out what angle I want to take.
The Alphabetical movie blog is all about angles. Make no mistake, it is not about the movies themselves. There have been hundreds of thousands of words written about most of these movies so I don’t feel as if I can add anything particularly insightful.
Instead, I like to write about how the movie makes me feel. Or what the movie makes me think about.
You’d think I could do that with just about any movie. Yet somehow, this movie has resulted in a void. I’m blocked.
So I’ll write about writer’s block!
In Support of Amplified Speech
I don’t write about performing or presenting all that often. I’m a performer and presenter and I like to think I’m pretty good at it. I’ve learned a lot of things in my years and recent experiences suggest that others might benefit from my expertise.
The advice I’m about to give will help you out if you are presenting a panel at a convention, making an announcement at a meeting or even performing on stage. This rule is absolute. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Here it is:
When someone puts a microphone in front of you, use it.
My CONvergence Schedule
Boy do I have a lot going on at the convention this weekend. While I have no idea why anyone would be interested in tracking me around the con, just in case you have an interest in stalking (or avoiding) me, here’s what I’ll be up to at the convention.
Thursday, July 4th
6:00 PM – The Mark Time Radio Show. I’ve been a voice actor on this show for um…about ten years? This year’s show is an expanded version of “The Sword in the Couch,” which was featured at the first Big Fun Radio Funtime show.
7:00 PM – Opening Ceremonies. I wrote and directed the Opening sketch and I’m pretty happy with it. All I can say about the sketch is that it is going to be awesome. It s also filled to overflowing with amazing talent. I also contributed a little bit of writing to the rest of Opening Ceremonies and rumor has it I might be helping out with at least one bit.
9:00 PM – Super Spy Smackdown. I will be the Master of Ceremonies for an epic battle between the greatest super spies ever assembled. Comedy commentary will be provided by a team of experts including Tim Uren, Joseph Scrimshaw, Dawn Krosnowski, Kelvin Hatle, Caroline Symcox and Christopher Jones. As always, Melissa Kaercher will be running the tech.
11:00 PM – Vilification Tennis takes over the Fearless Comedy Room Party in room 224!
Geeks Without God Talks about CONvergence a Little bit More
Well CONvergence is almost here and even though we geeked out about the convention a couple of weeks ago, we decided we wanted to do it a little more. This week we talk about stuff like the costumes that we’ll be wearing (OK – the costumes Nick and Molly will be wearing) and we tell some fun stories from past conventions.
The con is coming up in just a couple of days so if you are as excited about it as we are, this episode is a great way to whet your appetite.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 6/28
Pakistani Actress Gets Acid Thrown on Her Face
Now why did this happen? It happened because the Taliban in Pakistan are doing this to a lot of women. Their religiously motivated hatred of women is so deep, it is driving them to assault women simply because they are asking for an education.
I don’t dislike Islam any more than I dislike other organized religion but this is a fine example of what bothers about most of them. On the one hand, they talk about how their treatment of women shows such a high level of respect.
On the other hand. That is bullshit.
You don’t throw acid on someone because you respect them. You throw acid on someone because you want to punish them for existing.
I’m just trying to find out on which page of the Koran you can find this picture. I’m sure it’s near the picture of a woman. Ha ha! No it isn’t. No false idols, remember??
The Taliban practice a warped version of Islam. That is true. Religion is so easily warped already and that is what bothers me. Any religion that suggests women must cover themselves to avoid tempting men (as all the Abrahamic religions do) has created something that can be warped in the most sinister ways.
And yeah, I think I’ll call throwing acid on someone “sinister.”
A Geeks Without God Double Date
We finally managed to get my wife scheduled for an episode of Geeks Without God! Pat joined us to talk about television, which is a subject that has been rather lightly covered on previous GWG podcasts. Sometimes our 30 minute format means that we only scratch the surface of a particular topic and this episode is a fine example of that problem. We briefly touched on a lot of different atheist characters and how they are depicted. It is a broad topic worthy of a lot more discussion.
I imagine we’ll have to ask Pat back.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 6/21
There are Almost Literally No Movies Featuring Women any More
The article I link to points out that 90 percent of the films showing last weekend we all about guys or groups of guys. That’s pretty pathetic.
Now I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy watching movies about guys. I’m a big fan of Iron Man 3 and I don’t think it’d be better if it was about a woman. You can’t really make a movie about Superman without making a movie about SuperMAN.
I’m just curious as to why those are the only movies being made. The movie industry will probably tell you that it is because movies about women don’t make as much.
That may or may to be true but there sure isn’t a lot of data one way or the other, is there? Catwoman didn’t make any money because it sucked, not because it featured a woman as a protagonist.
Why isn’t there a Black Widow movie in development? You can’t tell me the legions of Marvel fans wouldn’t like to watch it. Wonder Woman is also languishing in development hell.
A Black Widow film would probably be all about Hawkeye anyway.
I don’t honestly think filmmakers have any idea how to make movies featuring women as protagonists. I understand it is difficult but I don’t think anyone actually gives a fuck as long as Man of Steel has a 100MM opening.
And that kind of sucks for anyone who has a daughter, doesn’t it?
Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bad Apple
This week, Kickstarter funded a project that pisses me off. A lot.
The results of this asshole’s project, though, bug me even more.
The project is a book wherein some dude from Reddit gives all sorts of horrible relationship advice to other dudes from Reddit. The excerpts I’ve read are, at best, encouraging sexual assault and, at worst, encouraging rape. Further, they seem to imply that women really want to get raped so it is all OK.
I don’t get the feeling the guy is trying to write a satirical piece. I think he’s dead serious. I have no idea if he is getting a lot of “action” using the techniques he will be describing in his book but if he is, I’m not thinking that he has a lot of repeat dates.
The very idea that all women are the same and you could write a book that will somehow provide dudes a “cheat code” is pretty insulting to 1/2 our population already but when that supposed “cheat code” involves behavior that could easily be rape, it crosses a line.
Geeks Without God Talks about Nuclear War
As we’ve progressed through our first year recording Geeks Without God, we’ve seen a lot of changes in how we schedule our episodes. Early on, we did a geeky boner episode every month. We didn’t do it because we were lazy but we wanted to make sure that we never forgot about the “Geeks” part in “Geeks Without God.” However, when you do podcasts about stuff like your favorite convention, A fundamentalist Board Game, and Dr. Who, you find that you are covering the “Geeks” pretty well.
But still, it is a lot of fun to just sit down and geek out for a while. This week’s podcast is one of those.
Geekery is a lot broader than movies or comics or TV shows, though. We talked about stuff like running a half marathon, playing games on a 3DS and, of course, National Parks.
Also note: we have a little blurb for Camp Quest Minnesota at the end of the podcast. They still have openings for their Summer Camp!
Grail Diary 