Robbie "CannedLizard" B's Journal

12:40AM - Robbie's List of Five NES Games

As you can probably tell from the pussy-footing title, this isn't exactly a strong, critically-vetted nor deep list. I went through a few titles. "Best NES games" felt wrong, but so did "Games I had the most memory of". Lots of these are not, in-fact, games from my childhood. Well, three out of five are, but that's not the point. This is a knee-jerk, subjective list I will probably disagree with in a week, but that's just the way I am. So here is a list, that means nothing, of five NES games.

In ascending order.

Yes.

5. Super Mario Bros.
( Read more... )

1:42AM

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. In the world.

Prison rape in the United States is nigh-ubiquitous.

Despite major strides, cannabis is still listed in the same category as heroin and other very hard drugs.

Combine this with what the health care reform debate has stirred up in the US political sphere (a year ago, the words "Tea Party" wouldn't have brought be to a frothing rage), and one can not help but come to the clear, CLEAR picture, that there is something fundamentally sick at the heart of America.

11:28PM - A Very Rough Transcription of Part of an Episode of QI I'm Watching

Stephen Fry: Now, why are women better anglers?
Contestant #1: Because they all used to be mermaids.
Fry: ...what?
#1: It's true! In 1664, there was a summit where, after consultation with the octopus queen-*laughter drowns him out*
Contestant #2: Hold on a sec, I need to write this down *whips out notebook and pen* "In...sixteen...sixty..."
#1: ACTUALLY, though, I knew this fisher bloke who used to take his wife's discarded pubic hairs for the chemicals when he went on fishing trips.
Fry: You're absolutely right...
*Cheers all around*
#1: All this time I just thought he was a pervert!
Fry: You're absolutely right in that this is what people THINK.
*Cheering dies out*
Fry: While the record weight for fish caught in the United Kingdom is held by women, there is no evidence that, indeed, humans even give OUT pheromones of any kind. Perhaps, if men held the record, we wouldn't be asking if a chemical plays a role at all.
#1: Oh.
Fry: Now, when bears fight lions, who wins?!

3:30AM

"I want to hammer it into people's heads that pop music is legitimate art when it's done right. A good pop song can be played anywhere in the world for any kind of person, and it's gonna make them wanna get up and fucking dance. Like it or not, it's an incredibly powerful genre."

Fuck you all, this is true.

10:48PM - Oh, Scrubs (this is kinda turning into a journal of nothing but quotes, isn't it?)

"Call me J.D., Dr. Dorian is my father. Actually, he's Mr. Dorian. Was, he's dead, and nothing will bring him back."

3:51AM - Why Lady GaGa is the best...

Because who else can combine mainstream and FUCKING WEIRD this well?

11:33PM - Firefly is still awesome

I'm sure most of you still remember how awesome Firefly is, but I feel compelled to share a line for old times' sake:

Kaylee: *Sigh* Everyone's got somebody...Wash, tell me I'm pretty.
Wash: Were I unwed, I would take you in a manly fashion.
Kaylee: 'Cuz I'm pretty?
Wash: 'Cuz you're pretty.

5:03PM - The Best Warranty I've Ever Recieved

"Skullcandy is proud to offer the best product warranty in the industry: if this product should fail in your lifetime, we will replace it at no charge. If the product is damaged by aggressive music listeners sliding a rail, sliding down the emergency ramp of your aircraft, slammed in your locker, slammed in your car door, run over by a car, running into a wall, getting run out of town, mountain biking, road biking, sky diving, beating your boyfriend unmercifully, getting beaten down by the man, blown up in an accidental experimentation with flammable substances, or damaged in any other every day experience, it means you are living your life the way we want our product to be used! In these, or any other damaging events, we will replace the product for a 50% discount from retail.
Love Skullcandy."

(just...you know...ignore the inappropriateness of the domestic violence one)

(oh, and as awesome as the warranty is, they are only the second best earphones I ever owned, the best being a pair of Sony ones with a reel for retracting the wire...I once left those headphones out in a HEAVY rain storm, and they worked fine after...only cost me $15 or $20, too! unfortunately, they seem to have been discontinued)

6:07PM - Depression

What it's like.

2:26PM

11:58PM

The 40th anniversary of the moon landing has got lots of folks waxing cynical about space programs. Honestly, I loved the idea of space travel when I was young, but now, in my transition to adulthood, I always had difficulty justifying it. Thank god I found my answer, in the words of Werner Von Braun as interpreted by Tom Wolfe:

"Here on Earth we live on a planet that is in orbit around the Sun. The Sun itself is a star that is on fire and will someday burn up, leaving our solar system uninhabitable. Therefore we must build a bridge to the stars, because as far as we know, we are the only sentient creatures in the entire universe. When do we start building that bridge to the stars? We begin as soon as we are able, and this is that time. We must not fail in this obligation we have to keep alive the only meaningful life we know of."

(From here)

12:39AM - Pop Music Will Never Be Low Brow: A Post-Modern Deconstruction of Lady Gaga

Bad day at work. Blowing off steam by writing:. I'm probably misusing post-modern (actually, these days, any use of "post-modern" is probably a misuse, due to it's over-use) where "performance art" would be more accurate, but whatever. Again: blowing off steam after a long day.

Post-modernism is, at its heart, a form of self-awareness for inanimate objects, specifically those objects we define as signifying "art". By drawing attention to conventions of the medium, post-modern art acknowledges that it IS constrained within a medium, and simultaneously rejects that the moment you remember that you're looking at something "false" isn't the moment that it stops being "real".

Television didn't really acknowledge it's own role within the household as the new "harth" until the late 80s and early 90s, when shows like The Simpsons showed the family gathering around the television. By contrast, the internet, perhaps due to it's origin as a method of communication between the very academics who developed it, was in what has been termed a "navel-gazing loop" from the beginning.

Similarly, popular music has always been self-aware, in that songs often acknowledge their existance as songs. This has become particular prominant in the modern era of popular music, especially since the popularization of recorded music a little over 50 years ago. Just look at the number of rock and roll songs ABOUT rock and roll.

( The madness continues below the cut )

1:00AM - HELP!

My screen keeps getting covered in weird artifacts. It looks like this (except even when out of game): http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v354/CannedLizard/weirdgraphicalglitch.jpg

It's happening right now. I can barely read this post! See: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v354/CannedLizard/weirdgraphicalglitch2.jpg

It even happens in DOS programs, running off a windows install disk with my current hard drive removed and a separate one in.

My screen also has a tendency to shut off and then turn back on, before one last time when it will shut off and I'll need to shut my computer off before it will start again. My computer generally freezes before this happens.

Help, please! Any clue, anyone? Anyone seen anything like this?

6:56PM - <pop3

Pop music is best because it plugs directly into the parts of our brain that burn like fire and are never satisfied for long.

The best thing ever, for now:

3:48PM - Truthes from Joey Comeau

'When summer starts, there are suddenly an awful lot of very pretty people dressed in summer clothes, which are sexy in a different way from winter clothes. And I find myself swinging wildly back and forth between thinking, "Calm down, Joey. These are real people, who should be treated with respect. I wonder what she thinks of that book she's reading?" and half a second later thinking, "I want to spend the rest of my life just kissing that one spot on her neck oh god oh god."'

7:34PM - Shit

The BNP won a seat on the European Parliament.

Fuck.

The fascists are here to stay.

8:29PM - Real Life Shippers Delight!

Favourite...celebrity...couple...ever.

2:06AM - Cat and Girl never lies

6:06PM

"I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists."

Nice.

3:31AM - Drunken rant say go!

"right now were here in boston
in love with downtown crossing
new york will still be there in the morning
come back to bed my darling "

There's a sexist stereotype that guys prefer virgins. I'm not sure which way the sexism cuts, because I'm not sure how true it is with men in general. I mean, from my perspective, I'm not exactly overflowing with experience, so experience on the other end is comforting. But I guess I wouldn't want to walk down Queen Street and get a nod from a boy or a girl who's part of this "club" of people who have slept with the same girl or guy...and then find that it's EVERYONE ON THE ROAD. I suppose it comes with the debate about how intimate sex should be.

The same sort of thing applies to cities, and it's why I'm glad I don't live in a first class world city, but instead in Toronto.

Toronto is...well, it's a bit of a blank slate. I read an article in Eye Weekly about how the psychogeography of Toronto is that Toronto becomes what you want it to be, and that's why so many immigrants come here (let us ignore the time I walked by a Gateway stand in Royal York station with south asian immigrants bonding over their desire to leave here and go back to the old country to their families). You may hate it. You may love it. But, in the end, Toronto IS. It's not an experience to be HAD, with an itinerary. It's a place you need to live in. It's a place to be.

"right now we're here in boston
in eden where you almost pulled your pants down
don't worry who these jokes will all be lost on
come back to bed my darling
there is nothing in the world that we can count on
even that we will wake up is an assumption
but i know for a fact that i loved someone
and for about a year he lived in boston..."