Facebook and Martial Law

So yesterday, Facebook blew up with thousands of stupid people posting a YouTube video involving a fictional Republican U.S. Representative named John Haller giving a speech at the Capitol regarding the installment of a form of martial law. Here's the video:

Now, as if the huge ONION in the bottom right corner wasn't evidence enough that it may not be from a real news source, the substance within the actor's speech is remarkably hilarious, obviously talking about a zombie apocalypse.

But alas, thousands of people began spamming their friends' feeds with this, stating things like, "SEE ALL YOU PEOPLE WHO VOTED DEMOCRAT, Obama IS the devil and is trying to take away your rights!!! YOUR tax dollars hard at work!!!!"

But see, as anyone who has an IQ over 70 knows, The Onion is a hilariously awesome fake-news company, using satire to really do nothing other than try to make people have a laugh. As their newspaper has evolved into a more web-based medium, it's becoming increasingly apparent that people aren't able to key into their satire very easily.

I would blame this on a simple lack of frame of reference for the most part, seeing as that I doubt that anybody who spread that video on Facebook has ever read the news in the first place. And it wouldn't really be a problem, except for this little old thing we have called democracy.

PLEAAAAAAASE, if you thought for a second that this video was anything other than facetious, take a good look at your education standing and attempt to gather information from sources with journalistic integrity before deciding to vote in [any] election.

This is the type of snowballing ignorance and naiveté that makes me scared for directly democratic policy-making decisions. The best analogy I can use to describe arguing with these types of people is this video of a man arguing with an Ibex:

Titanic Alternate Ending

Yeah, I reacted the same way.

When I found out that Titanic had an alternate ending, and that there was video on YouTube of the filmed version, I thought, "Oh, I bet it's a parody where Jack lives or something this should be greeeeat."

I'm using italics to signify immense sarcasm here, in case you can't tell.

But no, this is the completely real alternate ending that (whoever wrote Titanic) had stationed to end the movie (you might as well skip to the three minute mark):

So apparently Rose got all crazy and so did that searching-for-treasure guy. Whatever. It's probably good that Titanic didn't accidentally turn into a thriller like this after watching several hours worth of people dying in a catastrophic disaster.

3oh3 is SATIRE

Why am I the only one who seems to realize the fact that 3oh3 isn't being serious at all.

Granted, their songs are all across the board in terms of pop-charts and the radio, but please, you can't tell me these guys are serious. I have no doubt in my mind that 3oh3 is nothing more than an obscure, counterculture, satirical ploy that's made its way into the mainstream.

Watch this, and tell me if you still think they're serious business:

There's simply no way that these guys (who are awesome by the way - if you don't agree with me that they're awesome after watching that video then shame on you) are serious. And therefore they're awesome.

They're basically living everyone the dream of progressing a counterculture medium to such an extent that it infiltrates the mainstream and actually lands itself on the airwaves. Marilyn Manson did it, now we have 3oh3. (To be honest, I still think Lady Gaga's doing it too.)

Basically, when you're listening to 3oh3, you have to take into mind the irony of the circumstance, or else you're just another tool.

Lost without Flashbacks

If you're like me, a part of your soul died when you watched the final season of Lost this year.

If you're like me, you invested six years of your life into a crazy, mysterious show about an island where a bunch of people lived and had crazy, mysterious adventures with one another.

Then the final season came and in every episode there was a strange alternate universe (of which my friends and I passionately called the don't-care-niverse), where everything and everyone was different. Why? Because.

Then, [spoilers] we realize that the alternate universe was purgatory. Oh okay. So that makes the island of adventures, some, uh.. pre-purgatory purgatory?

Wait a second, that's kind of dumb. Don't you have a better explanation for that, JJ? What, you were basically just making it up as you went along? Oh, darn.

Well, a lot of fans are saying that they liked it and stuff, because it gave them some sort of happy ending that brought back all the characters together again. Whatever.

I'm in the crowd of people that thinks that the final season of Lost would have been a lot better without the flashbacks/flashforwards/flashsideways to the alternate universe. But, I guess we might as well live it down because it's never going to happen and we have to live with the pointless, flawed gimmick forever.

OR MAYBE WE DON'T. Check it out, this dude is single-handedly going through every episode of the final season to take out all the garbage. Although it pretty much cuts every episode's runtime in half, who cares, because it's all the not-stupid stuff!

In all honesty, there's no way I'm going back to watch any of the last season of Lost (it killed a part of my soul, remember?). I simply thought it was cool that this dude hated the season enough to re-edit hours upon hours of footage to try to find some way to enjoy it.

"Based on a True Story"

Does anybody else ever stop to think about how boring movies would be if they were based more on real life?

Now, I'm not meaning to get into the realm of "cell phones" and other basic means of communication that should make horror films nonexistent. I'm thinking more like, the Internet.

Think about all the movies you've seen lately. How much of the movie consisted of the characters within the film sitting down at a desk and surfing websites like reddit, College Humor, and The Very Unimpressive? Probably zero of the movie.

I'm just saying, if a movie is "based on a true story," there better be a good portion of the film devoted to a dude staring blankly at a computer screen.

What's the Deal with Klingons?

The following is a conversation that my good friend Owen Dennis and I had the other day regarding Klingons. I felt it interesting enough to post here. Can anyone answer any of our questions? Here's the convo:

Owen

Alright this has been bothering me. I've now watched all the Star Trek movies, a number of the original series, and I'm onto season 2 of TNG. Can you explain to me why people like Klingons? People go to conventions and stuff dressed as Klingons, why is this?
Klingons are the most one dimensional species ever:

"I'm an ugly alien that wears ugly cloths and I speak a language that sounds like I'm throwing up. Also I am a warrior race so that's the only thing I care about and everything I ever do is about fighting. The End."

"How are you today?"

"I'm a Klingon so I will fight you now."

"Do you wanna watch soccer with me?"

"I'm a Klingon so I will fight you now."

They have no other desires or motivations, just fighting.
Jawas, a species we see for 10 minutes in one movie in 1977, have more to their personalities than Klingons do. Hell, Gungans have more individual characteristics than Klingons do. Klingons are boring and I groan every time they come on screen.
What is the fascination here? Why do people enjoy this species? Even more, why do people intentionally dress up as such an ugly race? Most people try to dress up to be a little more cool or sexy or something, not to become intentionally more ugly.

Me

I simply don't understand how their culture was able to evolve to the point where they have star ships if all they do is act irrationally angry all the time.

Owen

This is a good point. They get so mad I would assume they would not be able to put up with the scientific process for more than a minute before they destroyed all their experiments in a fit of rage.

Daleks are more than one dimensional purely because they realize they are one dimensional and proud of it whereas Klingons are not self aware at all and in fact are their own parodies.

Me

If, too, their culture is pretty much solely based off of battles, fighting, and general anger issues, then that must mean their society had it instilled early. Meaning, before reaching warp speed (thereby meeting intelligent life outside their own planet).

This would mean that cultures within the race itself had to have been battle-ridden throughout much of history. Are they all at peace with one another now, now that they realize there are other, more different cultures to be angry at? Or are there different subspecies that still hate each other, because obviously Klingons don't get over grudges?

Owen

True. Humans are all like "we've learned not to hate each other and we've eliminated all needs and wants" but klingons are like the opposite of that and they seem to like to be the opposite of that? They must still hate each other seeing as how they hate everything.

Yes, this is the type of stuff that my friends and I sometimes talk about.
What you gonna do about it?

How Do You Win the Lottery Four Times?

How many times do you have to win the lottery before it's pretty much proof that you sold your soul to the devil?

So, most people would assume that if you win the lottery, you're pretty darn lucky. Now, if you win again, that might be proof that you are the luckiest effing person to ever live.

But, what if you won three times? Then things would begin to get scary, right? I know I'd think so. But what if you won the lottery... four times?

Well, then you'd be Las Vegas resident Joan R. Ginther. Yes, that's right. She literally just won the lottery for her FOURTH TIME.

As if winning millions upon millions of dollars in early winnings wasn't enough, for some reason she just kept on buying lottery tickets, because of course, there are more millions to win.

She's currently requesting to have minimal publicity over her most recent winning, because, I assume, she knows she will be asked a wide range of questions regarding whom she sold her soul to.

My New Favorite Commercial 2

Awhile ago, I discovered my new favorite commercial. It was a Dunkin' Donuts ad that included a couple of dudes with an awesome song in the background.

Yeah, I thought that was cool, but this new Old Spice advertising campaign kind of blows it out of the water in terms of awesome:

So, just as before, Old Spice should do several things:

1. Keep making these commercials, because they're amazingly awesome.

2. Make an entire series of this dude for TV, where hopefully the entire series would involve transitioning weird backgrounds and complex activities that all stream together while he goes about his daily business.

3. Give me an unlimited supply of Old Spice products for totally unintentionally advertising for their company.

Stupid viral videos and their easiness of being liked. I feel like such a tool.

M. Night Does it Again!

As I sit here, eating my Honeycomb cereal (the best cereal there is), checking through Rotten Tomatoes, I can't help but notice that M. Night Shyamalan did it again.

At the time of this writing, his latest film, The Last Airbender sits at a staggering 8%. This is literally one of the lowest scores I've ever seen on Rotten Tomatoes, and that's saying something.

Now, I know that I've discussed this matter before, but I really do want to know who in Hollywood keeps thinking that M. Night Shyamalan isn't going to screw a movie up when handed a bunch of money.

In fact, this movie is so bad on so many levels, that Roger Ebert is sort of leading an online campaign against the film, claiming it to be racist, and, "an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented."

That's pretty much the worst thing I've ever heard said about a movie.

This summer, Avatar: The Last Airbender (the Nickelodeon cartoon show) came on Netflix, and I've been trying to furiously get through season one so that I could enjoy it in full before seeing the movie. Now that the film has been released, my main motivation to see it isn't so much that I liked the show and would like to see a live action form of it, but because I want to see how bad it really is.

M. Night, I think it's time to switch up your roles if the main motivation of people to want to see your film is to laugh at it.