Innocuous World Domination

I was thinking back to when I was but a wee little Blaine and I realized that much like every other kid-- I frequently dreamt up ways to take over the world. I suppose you could say I was like Pinkie and the Blaine.

I was slightly happier than Brain though

After this my trip down memory lane I decided that since I want to blog-- but sometimes struggle with inspiration I will start a recurring theme. What am I writing about today? Why the same thing I write about every (couple of) days! Taking over the world. However there is a twist.

I will stop at nothing to re-use this picture

The challenge I've issued myself is that I have to come up with a plausible way to rule the world beginning with something very innocuous and have some sort of tenuous logical path to the end.  I think it's fitting that for the first edition of Innocuous World Domination, my first step will be to enlist the help of Dramatic Gopher.

I told you I'd use it again

Step One:

Gather an army of gophers that happen to be of the dramatic persuasion. This is a pretty innocent act, and I feel that the only people who will notice are the ones that live on the internet. As soon as I've gathered enough gophers-- say... 10,000, I will begin to train them.

Step Two: Training

At this point, my gopher army will have started to hunger for war, but I can't yet oblige them. As the gopher blood lust continues to grow, I will allow them access to the internet. At first they will enjoy the new-found information, and they will begin to placate themselves. Gophers and other furry creatures are the stars of the internet, why would they want to ruin that?

He's like a kitten, but small

Step Three: The Big Reveal

This is the linchpin of the whole operation; just as soon as the gophers have begun to trust humanity, I show them the dark-side of the internet. I introduce them to... Internet Commenters. The gophers will be forced to read page after page of poorly-spelled vitriol. Comments that make you question yourself, and humanity. It's cruel, but it needs to be done.

What have I done?

Step Four: Recruitment

After my army has discovered a sufficient amount of evidence to fuel their spite, I will unleash them on the world-- not for fighting, but for recruitment. The gophers will venture out and tell the furry brethren about the horrors of the civilized world. A fervor of hatred and fear will sweep across the natural world.

This is where it all begins

Step Five: Victory

Once my minions have gathered enough support, they will begin the infiltration. Disguised as cute and lovable animals, the army will find their way into the homes of unsuspecting Redditors looking for karma. Once they have earned the trust of their captors, my army will strike. Once they've subdued the Redditors, I will have control of the internet, and once I have control of the internet, I control the world.

The Dark Knight Rises

This summer has been pretty damned good to those of the nerdy persuasion-- The Avengers was incredible, Spider-Man was pretty good, but good lordy was The Dark Knight Rises fantastic.

Come at me bro

I loved the movie, and couldn't have been happier with the way it turned out-- but I don't want to turn this post into a review since I think there are plenty of those already. No, I want to talk about what the movie inspired in me. Before that though, there is the sad fact that some insane piece of shit used this movie as a vehicle for his own twisted desires.  That guy ruined what should have been a wonderful experience for the people in the theater but I have to say the the way those involved in the movie have responded is inspiring.

Not only did Christian Bale visit the victims, but Hans Zimmer composed a song to raise money; a song which you can find here:  http://www.watertower-music.com/releases_spotlight.php?search=Charity 

For me, Batman has always been about finding peace. What I mean by that is not that Batman is peaceful-- no, he certainly does get around to a lot of punching.

He's sad because he's punched everyone there is to punch

Batman's search for peace has always been more about coming to terms with the death of his parents, but it progressed to much more than that. Of course there are different iterations of Batman, but let's take the Nolan Batman as our main subject. Bruce's parents were the victims of bad luck-- a child was frightened and asked to leave the opera, and through a stroke of terrible timing they were shot by a desperate mugger.

Many years later, Bruce attends the hearing of his parents' killer only to see him released. Shortly thereafter, Joe Chill is killed in front of Bruce. Rather than take solace in the fact that the killer is dead, Bruce feels more unrest than ever before. He eventually confronts Falcone to tell him that Gotham is not afraid-- Falcone threatens Bruce and points out that he has a lot to lose in the form of friends and loved ones. This inspires Bruce to go on a journey of self-discovery.

Also known as the shotgun approach to detecting

Needless to say, Bruce finds his way and eventually becomes the world's greatest detective. Fast forward two movies and  eight years, and Batman is at the top of Gotham's most wanted. Gotham is in an unprecedented stretch of peace and as such, has no need for Batman. And yet, Bruce cannot come to terms with this. Just as Batman has disappeared from Gotham, so has Bruce Wayne disappeared into the halls of Wayne Manor. But why, you ask? Why would Bruce Wayne hide when it's Batman who is the wanted criminal? Because Batman is the true identity, and Bruce Wayne is the cover. 

He's already wearing a mask

I thought the movie played this beautifully-- and that's where I think the movie is most inspiring. Although Bruce Wayne started his journey looking for a way to avenge the death of his parents, he ends it by finding a way to save his city. Batman became a symbol for Gotham in a way that Bruce Wayne never could-- but what gets me most about the character is how he has become a symbol for people in the real world too.

Like I mentioned earlier, Christian Bale and Hans Zimmer have reached out to the victims of the Aurora shooting, but the character of Batman has done so much more than that. Director Kevin Smith started a non-profit that combats sex-trafficking, and he named it after Bruce Wayne ( http://viewaskew.com/thewaynefoundation/ ). Smith also does a podcast where he talks to people who have been involved with the Batman universe: he's spoken with Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Mark Hamill, and many more. A kid who grew up idolizing these people now gets to talk to them about Batman. Hell, Kevin Smith even writes Batman comics now. All this simply because loved Batman ( a gross oversimplification, but you get the point).  

It's not lupus

Another wonderful story from the Dark Knight is of the  Route 29 Batman, a man who dressed up to inspire sick children. This guy is just someone who happens to have the money to dress up in silly outfits and run around being nice to people-- which I'm sure he would have found a way to do, with or without Batman. I suppose the point of all this is that I want to focus on the ways in which characters can inspire greatness, rather than focusing on the ways in which we can blame the Aurora shooting on anything other than the guy being a complete and utter sack of shit.

Time Distortion

Apparently I'm not very good at tracking time as it has been almost three weeks since my last post.

There's really no way to tell.

One of the hardest classes I took in college was a philosophy of time course taught be a theoretical physicist-- the one thing I was sure about after that class was that I did not understand time. If you think about it, there's really almost no way to define the passage of time. We can measure speed in a number of ways, miles per hour, meters per second, jiffies, and many more, but lists work better in threes. It's also fairly easy to measure distance-- miles, meters, beardseconds... you name it. But how can we measure time? It's not like we can say a second passes at one second per second... or that an hour passes at 60 minutes per hour. It's like saying I'm exactly as tall as I am. This statement, while true, is not inherently useful. 

http://xkcd.com/703/ a link to the actual site, and some sort of clever comment

Furthermore, it's pretty difficult to distinguish temporal events. How do we quantify when something happened? How do I know that Batman Begins first premiered in 2005? I can't go back to that year and go see it for myself-- sure, a quick internet search told me that I was right but the internet also told me that being raised in large cities makes people gay (http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality#Causes_of_homosexuality ). My point is, that I'm fairly certain that certain things have happened in the past, but I have absolutely no proof other than my memory, and maybe the internet. Even things happening right now are hard to quantify, pretty much every experience we have is on a slight delay so what we perceive as "now" is a reaction to something that happened a split-second ago.

Your brain on Philosophy of time... not even once

Like I said, back in 2005 the world changed for the better-- Batman Begins... began. It then seemed like an eternity before The Dark Knight would be released, but when it was it seemed like Batman Begins had come  only come out the day before. And now, The Dark Knight Rises will come out in a week even though The Dark Knight only came out yesterday, and Batman Begins, the day before that. 

And in a year or two, the series will be rebooted

My point is, that when you have a lot going on sometimes time can slip away and you can forget to take the time to enjoy life. My ancillary point is that it's not my fault I haven't blogged in a while, it's times.

Sexism, Confirmation Bias, and You... also Vampires

First off, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say... sexism is bad.

A bold stance, but I stand by it

Now that we've got that out of the way, I've been thinking a lot about how the so-called battles of the sexes is played out in pop-culture. What prompted this particular blog was an episode of Scrubs called "My Tormented Mentor." A new surgeon shows up at the hospital and hilarity ensues-- but there's a twist! This surgeon is... a woman.  Scrubs

If you'd rather not watch the clip (you should though, Scrubs is awesome) then let me summarize it for you. Dr. Miller walks in and the menfolk objectify her but are then shocked that she is actually the mythical creature known as a strong female character. 

A strong female character photographed
in the wild

Initially I thought, "hmm, while she is abrasive... at least she is confident." This character was basically the female equivalent of Dr. Cox-- smart, strong, annoying and lacking a certain social etiquette. However, if you watch until the end of the clip I posted, and the beginning of part 2 you'll see that Dr. Miller has an issue with Turk. Because he says "he's got her back" she jumps down his throat for being the "worst kind of sexist," one who tries to protect women because he views them as weak.

A black and sexist Superman if you will

Dr. Miller then goes on to mock Turk asking if the widdle boy is going to cry. Now, it is entirely debatable whether or not Turk is actually sexist but there are a couple of issues I have with Dr. Miller. First off is that she has a massive chip on her shoulder-- she sees sexism everywhere and holds a grudge against seemingly everyone (she later gets mad at Elliot for something about being a woman). Now, I won't deny that sexism exists-- I'm sure it does. But I do think that by being so hyper-sensitive to it, Dr. Miller has in turn become sexist; she just happens to be sexist against men. I have nothing against feminism-- provided it is simply the notion that women should be treated the same as men; note that I said "same" not "privileged." Just because Dr. Miller may have been discriminated against does mean that she has license to belittle men. Therein lies the rub; I think feminism is an inherently flawed term. Once more, I have nothing against women, but I think the term feminist can be alienating. Furthermore, given the history of women's rights I think the term has done a lot of good but if we ever hope to get past this obsession with gender then we should adopt a new term-- although I will admit that "personism" doesn't have the same ring.

I'm sure if anyone read my blog
this would be an argument thrown my way

This all brings me to my last point-- Dr. Miller seems to be more about talking the talk than walking the walk. She spouts off whenever men piss her off, and she's very aggressive about it. However, another show that I just started watching got me thinking about an alternative. The protagonist from True Blood embodies what I think is the best form of "personism." 

Although I'm sure many people are
angry that she's "just a waitress"

From the first episode of the series, Sookie proves that she can fend for herself-- she meets Vampire Bill (he's a vampire named Bill)  and discovers that some people plan to attack him. Sookie then rushes outside and saves Vampire Bill. Within the first ten minutes of the series, Sookie has done more for feminism (or personism) than Dr. Miller did in Scrubs. Rather than run around yelling at people that they should respect her because she's a woman, she shows that she is a capable human being. Throughout the series Sookie takes charge without having to speechify about how womanhood-- she initiates the first kiss with Bill, she saves him multiple times, and she doesn't let people piss in her wheaties. I suppose my point is, that being a woman does not mean you automatically deserve respect-- being a person does.

Teaching, Movies, and Memes

This week something strange happened. I've seen the other side of the coin, and I can't say that I like it all too much. I was going about my day and running some errands something awful happened. I saw students out in the real world.

I apologize for the resolution-- clearly
this picture was taken with a potato

Now we've all been students and so it's fair to assume that we were all shocked when we realized that teachers existed outside of school. I, however, never expected to feel the same about students. Now don't get me wrong, I love my students and I'm excited that they exist-- but seeing them in the real world made me panic. After a brief bout of hyperventilation, I came to my senses and realized that I wouldn't have to answer questions, give out pens, or grade homework. In fact, I'm almost certain that my students are actually people.

On the left: my girlfriend's reason for watching the movie
on the right: a much better reason to watch the movie

Last night I was forced to watch Crazy, Stupid, Love-- while I will very reluctantly admit that I enjoyed the movie I am still fundamentally opposed to it on the grounds that Ryan Gosling is too damned pretty. There is of course, an argument to be made that Emma Stone is too hot-- that would be silly though because she is perfect. All in all, the movie was pretty good though pretty much every character is reprehensible in some way. Michael Scott (or whatever Steve Carell's character is) is a sad sack who blames his shortcomings on the world. His best friend is useless and ends his friendship with Michael Scott at the behest of his wife.The son is persistent to the point of sexual harassment. Julianne Moor cheats on her husband, asks for a divorce and then gets mad at her husband because he slept with someone. Emma Stone-- well, we all know she's perfect even if she does have a horrible best friend in the movie. Ryan Gosling oddly enough, is one of the few characters with whom I sympathize-- he may sleep around, but he never forces any of the girls to do anything, they choose to sleep with him. 

Oh Condescending Wonka, you so condescending

I was browsing the interwebs (Reddit) and I came across the above meme (or macro if you insist). The title of the thread was: "I apologize on behalf of the majority of my generation." This seemed fairly silly as I don't remember hearing about "IDunnoAnyGoodNames" being elected as spokesperson of his or her generation. There are a couple of ways in which I think this type of mentality is stupid.

The most obvious being that one person speaks for his/her generation. The second part is the notion that you have something to apologize for. Even if there are people that think their parents are trying to ruin their lives by grounding them, we needn't apologize for their idiocy. This reminds me of a news segment during the OJ Simpson trial-- granted I have no memory of the event, but we discussed the clip in a CRIM 101 class. 

A reporter goes up to a young African American student and asks him what OJ's acquittal meant for African Americans everywhere. The kid refused to comment-- but we later discovered that he wished he'd said "Well, I heard a white man was acquitted of murder-- what does that mean to you?"

The point being that just because you have something in common with a person doesn't mean that that person represents you. 

Your daily dose of awww

Apartments, Writing, and The Future

This week has been all sorts of exciting and I can't help but look forward to everything that is yet to come. I can't help but feel that my life is coming to its latest chapter-- things are changing in so many ways, and they are staying the same in all the ways that matter.

I'm pretty sure this is the place I'll be staying in

I've found what will become my home for the next year-- and I have to say I'm pretty excited.Although I'm moving a whole four blocks away from my girlfriend it is conceptually quite the large shift. Last year we lived in the same building and this summer we've been in the same house so four blocks is a relatively big shift. Granted, she also spent about 18 months in Florence, which by my estimations is at least 12 blocks away. Given that we did manage to survive the trans-continental relationship, I feel that we will make do with our four block distance. We might just have to rack up the frequent flyer miles.
If nothing else, it will be nice to have my first adult domicile. My mission to impersonate a responsible adult has begun.

Fifty more of these and I could be a rapper

I checked the stats for my blog today and I am officially making money! Granted, I have literally only earned one cent-- but still, that's about what I'll make as a teacher. I can now say that as a writer I have made $200.01! Most of that for editing-- some of it for a writing contest, and of course the one cent for being an amazing blogger. Much like teaching, writing has never been about the money for me. I love to do it, and I'd like to say I'm good at it. Of course you may beg to differ, but you can't argue with all of my earning.

In the future people can drive poorly
 at the altitude of their choosing

As a recent college graduate  I can't help but consider the future. My perspective now is that while I may not know exactly what the future holds for me, there are a few things I'm banking on. I view it as a gamble on what is to come-- a bet that I will do my best to make sure actually happens.

I'm staying in Spokane for the next year to sub (or maybe full-time teach, we'll see), to be with my ball and chain, and to hold on to some semblance of familiarity. The teaching speaks for itself; I love to do it, I'm good at it, and it will make me rich (rich because I plan to win the lottery while teaching).

The old ball and chain (Nikki) is a hugely important part of my life and I've decided that I want to wait for her to graduate-- not because she's slow, but because she's a year younger. Without delving too deeply into the realm of cheesiness, she is a wonderful person and I want to do everything I can to make our relationship work. We have been dating nine whole months, and I'm happy to say that we can celebrate the fact that there are no babies on the way.

Lastly, I've never really lived anywhere in the US other than Spokane and as such I might as well start my life out here. Plus, change is stupid. Nobody likes change.

A coaster wise beyond its years

Exciting Things From My Life

As promised, I shall try to stave off the drought of bloggery on my part.  These last couple of months have certainly been eventful—I actually finished a large writing project, my girlfriend returned from foreign lands, I got to see my eighth grade students move on to high school… oh, and I graduated from college.

I am now lazy college graduate

To the first point, I completed my senior project  which ended up being 80 pages or so with the intent to expand it to novel length.  It’s a story about people who do things and go places. If that synopsis isn’t enticing enough then: it’s a story about people who do things and go places, and then they learn stuff about life. Seriously though, if anyone reads my blog and actually wants to read the story—send me a note, I can give you a copy.

Pictured above: a book that is not my senior project 

To the second exciting event in my life, my girlfriend has returned from her travels abroad. Apparently Spokane was not exciting enough, so she flew away to Florence. Despite the distance, we made our relationship work through a judicious use of Skype and instant messaging.  It wasn’t fun, but it is wonderful to have her back—even if it means I have to start showering again. So far there has been much couple-y activity, including such exciting things as driving to Pseudo-Portland (Vancouver), and watching the Dragonboats. The most disappointing aspect of the affair was that not a single team named themselves DragonBoat Z. All in all, I’m thankful to have the old ball and chain back in my life. Also, Portland is still silly.

Somehow the joke never gets old 

Today I came back in to the classroom where I did my student teaching this semester, and it was a pretty great experience. Today was yearbook distribution and signing; while I may despise writing anything by hand, it was worth it to see the students light up as they read (or attempted to decipher) what I wrote. My mentoring teacher surprised me with a yearbook of my own which was fantastic.

Artist’s rendering of my penmanship 

I’m trying to ease back in to the  process of regular blogging, so I’ll end the post here with a few thoughts

1.)    Portland is silly, but Powell’s is fantastic.

2.)    Long distance relationships are not ideal—but I apparently am awesome enough that my girlfriend resisted the tempty ways of the Italians.

3.)    I might try to develop a format for my blog so that I have more structure. Maybe I will keep the idea of updating with Exciting Things from My Life.

One of the top Google results for “exciting things”