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.