Much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth went on yesterday to protest two bills under consideration in the US congress: SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT Intellectual Property Act – and yes it is a really long acronym like the USA PATRIOT Act). In short, various web sites like Wikipedia and Boing Boing “blacked out” for 24 hours to protest the bills. Craigslist just made a timed interstitial linking to their views on the topic but the site was still functional, because apparently commerce waits for no man.

Nothing persuades like appeals to emotion, if Craigslist may be considered a representative sample of the outcry:

<RANT>Try to imagine jack-booted thugs throttling free speech, poisoning the Internet (greatest of American inventions, the very pillar of modern democracy), and devastating one of the our [sic] most successful industries. Totalitarian, anti-American, massively-job-killing nonsense.</RANT>

Considering the sheer mass of the internet (if it could be quantified in this manner) it would take quite a few “jack-booted thugs” to throttle that much free speech. Which sounds like job creation city, baby!

It didn’t shock me to learn that Boing Boing was in on this “blackout” action, as Cory Doctorow is, Wikipedia quote for cheeky irony…

[..] an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licences for his books.

Once Boing Boing was back online, I took a few moments to read through their spin on SOPA and PIPA and found this nugget (permalink not available):

PIPA sponsor Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) can’t figure out why people don’t like it: “Hiding behind the black box of self-censorship does not resolve the problem that is plaguing American business and hurting American consumers.”

The quoted text contained a link to Senator Leahy’s official web site, which I followed, and read this:

“Much of what has been claimed about the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act is flatly wrong and seems intended more to stoke fear and concern than to shed light or foster workable solutions. The PROTECT IP Act will not affect Wikipedia, will not affect Reddit, and will not affect any website that has any legitimate use. A foreign rogue website is clearly defined as one that has no real purpose other than infringement. Theft and fraud on this scale undermines consumer trust in online transactions. Perhaps if these companies would participate constructively, they could point to what in the actual legislation they contend threatens their websites, and then we could dispel their misunderstandings. That is what debate on legislation is intended to do, to fine-tune the bill to confront the problem of stealing while protecting against unintended consequences.["]

Ding ding ding.

I dare say that unlike many of the blackers-out and fist-shakers, I actually read the text of the PIPA bill. End to end. The whole enchilada. And maybe the offending passage(s) was/were written in Latin (Crushum Semper Internetatum) but honestly I didn’t find anything about jack-booted thugs and a lusty desire to destroy, destroy I tell you, the internet.

What I did see was some semblance of an attempt to regulate and/or outright disrupt such sites as The Pirate Bay. I won’t wax all holier-than-thou, being no stranger to The Pirate Bay and its like, but I do know that sooner or later the free ride is going to end, or become harder to find.

As for free speech getting muzzled, it could be argued that sites like Wikileaks could be the target of such legislation as their sole aim is to print classified information. Wikileaks is hosted outside of the US, which could brand it a “foreign rogue site” ripe for censorship.

But some of the more sensational claims require actual evidence. Will jack-booted thugs enact and enforce SOPA and PIPA? Will free speech cease to exist? Will sites like this one be silenced forever for having the audacity to claim… Fair Use?

(If I were on the anti-SOPA and PIPA soapbox, this would be where I would rant about how jack-booted thugs would SHUT ME DOWN FOREVER because I embedded a – gasp! – YouTube video on my site. Good thing I’m more rational than that.)

To be fair, I have not read the text of the SOPA bill. It wouldn’t shock me if SOPA was indeed draconian, Orwellian, profane, outrageous, sensational, utter madness, and a hard boiled egg. House bills tend to be wild like that but that’s no excuse. Senate bills, on the contrary, are supposed to be high-minded, rational, all about the people, and basically read like how Senator John Kerry (MA) speaks. Maybe that’s why I am a) bored and b) cheeky about PIPA.

I mean, get a grip, people. Neither bill has passed. This does not mean that the debate won’t be a bunch of Kabuki theater intended to produce a hellscape of jack-booted thugs lustily squelching your freedom of speech. But I have to ask: What’s in it for the people who are telling you/us that SOPA and PIPA is the gateway to the anti-Christ? What’s their stake in this? Why would Craigslist fret that Monster Cable (no, really) will use either or both bills to shut them down forever?

I do agree that The People (yes you) should be educated about what the congress is debating when and what it all means. But parroting someone’s party line because it seems revolutionary and all “sticking it to the man” without actually knowing the facts? That’s not the path to the light either.

But this would hardly be the first or last time that “the internet” was mired in controversy, filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Yeah, so how’s that working out?

I’ll wait while you click the link.

Still waiting…

Done yet?

Now?

Why I have zero interest in flash-in-the-pan online “activism”, illustrated.

Print & save.

Bottle caps to the far right of each row represents a “repeat” beer. Beers had on draft are not pictured but are included in the monthly lists.

Starting from the top:

January:

Scaldis 12
Ridgeway IPA
Three Floyds Gumball Head
Milwaukee Brewing Milk Stout
Ska Decadent IPA
Pilsner Urquell
Guinness Extra Stout
Black Sheep Ale
Sam Adams Noble Pils
New Belgium Fat Tire
North Coast Old Rasputin
Fullers 1845
Milwaukee Brewing Louie’s Demise Ale
Tilburgs Dutch Brown Ale

February:

Lakefront Brewery Bridge Burner
Lakefront Brewery Cream City Pale Ale
Horny Goat Milk Stout
Leinenkugel’s Big Eddy Stout
New Glarus Snow Shoe
Sam Adams Parallel 48 IPA
Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout
Westmalle Dubbel
Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron

March:

Furthermore “Proper” Ale
Lagunitas Censored
Fullers ESB
Capital Brewing Island Wheat
Zatec Czech Lager
Three Floyds Alpha King
Hinterland Pale Ale
Horny Goat Honey Blonde Lager
Birra Moretti
Dark Horse Crooked Tree IPA
Lindemans Framboise Lambic
Leinenkugel’s Special Ale

April:

Birra Moretti “La Rossa” (shown as a repeat, oops)
Moylans Hopsickle Triple IPA
Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold
Bass Pale Ale
Tatra Beer
Moylans Nor Cal IPA
Belhaven St. Andrews
Shiner 102
Taj Mahal Lager
Dogfish Head Squall IPA
Konig Pilsner

May:

Bell’s Oberon
Wychwood Scarecrow Golden Ale
Sunner Kolsch
James Boag Lager
Murphy’s Irish Stout (Can)
Smithwick’s Irish Ale (Draft)

June:

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Woodchuck Pear Cider
Rogue Dead Guy Ale
Big Bay Boatilla Amber
North Coast Red Seal
Berghoff Prairie Lager
Piraat Ale
Sam Adams Boston Lager (Draft)
Majaraja Beer (Restaurant bottle)
Radeberger Pilsner (Draft)

July:

Cherish Kriek Lambic
Lagunitas Maximus IPA
Rogue Juniper Pale Ale
Big Bay Wavehopper Kolsch
Wells Bombardier
Victory Helios Ale
Hornsby’s Amber Cider
Anchor Steam Beer
Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier – Marzen

August:

He’brew Messiah Bold
Grand Teton Brewing Sweetgrass APA
Sierra Nevada “Beer Camp” Weizenbock
Sierra Nevada “Beer Camp” Double IPA
Sierra Nevada “Beer Camp” Juniper Black Ale
Sierra Nevada “Beer Camp” California Common Ale
Kostritzer Schwarzbier
Bear Republic XP Pale Ale
Victory Prima Pils
Hacker-Pschorr Weiss (Draft)

September:

Three Floyds Pride & Joy
Kulmbacher Eisbock
Tusker Lager
Svyturys Ekstra
Lindemans Kriek Lambic
Goose Island Honker Ale (Draft)

October:

Hinterland Maple Bock
Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier – Weizen
Hinterland Luna Coffee Stout
Spaten Oktoberfest
Shiner Oktoberfest
Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale
North Coast Old Stock Ale

November:

Spaten Optimator
Rhinelander Brewing Thumper IPA
Fullers Vintage Ale 2004
Duvel (cork)
Maredsous Tripel

December 2011:

Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
Unibroue Blanche de Chambly
Xingu Black Beer
Piraat Ale (cork)
Anchor Christmas 2011

Total: 102 unique beers

Well! I called it back in 2010 when I said…

My expectation is that the 2011 consumption is not going to be as prolific since I am not in the beer sales biz anymore and therefore don’t have to stay abreast of each and every new offering. I am enjoying beer more now since I can try it at my own pace.

True. Back when I sold beer for a living, I couldn’t stand the “Rate Beer” crowd that had to drink anything and everything just to brag about having the most beer ratings or something. It’s fun to try different beers out but I’m also settling in to some favorites (or old standbys, depending on how you look at it).

I’m not sure if I am going to run this feature next year but it’s been an interesting snapshot (literally) of my beer consumption.

Enjoy this article responsibly. We card hard!

I suppose some context and back story is in order. It all started when /harp music

It all started when I got my new Blu-ray player. Not only was I enjoying movies again in stunning hiiiiigh definition™ but the player itself was loaded with extras like Amazon Video on Demand and Vudu. I got tired of spending money on a per-film basis and decided to give Netflix another try, streaming only. Despite the fact I was a former subscriber to the DVD service (back when that was the only real option) they granted me a free trial. Score! And since that day I have apparently been on a mission to watch all of Netflix’s online catalog.

Other than the Occam’s Razor version of why I would have dialed up lesbian romances (single guy, home alone, do the math, yes you’re welcome to that image, enjoy), in truth I hadn’t really seen any and wondered what they were like. I truly wasn’t expecting lots of “girl on girl” action and little else. Actually, I figured if The L-Word was any guide I expected lots of jangly solo guitar stuff from female singers (Sarah McLachlin comes to mind but she plays piano, yes? So, Shawn Colvin then?), lots of Birkenstocks, lots of “making a connection”, and maybe some kissing. Lots of “bringing the crazy” too, again, if The L-Word is the blueprint.

Well.

/pulls up chair

Listen, son, assuming you’re a male reader who fell into reading this and is looking around nervously in case you’re spotted getting the dirt on lesbian-themed movies on Netflix, here’s what the internet is for: Free access to megatons of porn. No, no, I mean the internet is for finding out the dirt on lesbian-themed movies on Netflix in total privacy. You know, learning about things you’re embarrassed to ask your friends about, amirite? Hey, I learned to use cold water while shaving from watching Good Morning, Vietnam, okay? We all learn things from diverse places. Or we ought to.

So without further ado, here are some reviews of the Sapphic romances I have been observing of late. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Show Me Love (1998): ZOMG this is by far the best one of the bunch that I have seen lately. I was worried about what might be up with this film because the characters are ~14 years old, but “hot girl on girl action” soooo isn’t the point. It’s about human nature, and how high school angst happens in Sweden too, not just to you personally, anywhere else. Brilliant dialogue, brilliant exploration of the highs and lows of high school (albeit the Swedish version) and how literally everyone will just die unless… nevermind, over it, on to the next crisis. This movie had me at “I saw ‘raves’ on an ‘out list’ somewhere.” Just watch the scene and revel in the truth. 5/5 stars.

Secret Things (2002): Not a “lesbian” film as such, but wow what an amazing movie. I was absolutely riveted from the get-go and the movie never lets go until the very end. “Let’s use men to get what we want,” Nathalie tells Sandrine, and the rest is holy crap amazing. This movie is a master class on how to be “erotic” and yet have a story worth sitting through for 90 minutes. 5/5 stars.

Elena Undone (2010): Back to the pure lesbian stuff. Well, from here on out we have movies that were “okay” but lacked something. This was the movie that started this binge of sorts for me and while the story kept me interested enough to hang around for the end, I kept reminding myself that Director Schecter was probably behind this caper and as a result expect EVERY lesbian cliche to be used… in abundance. Let’s see if I can rattle them off: 1) woman thinks she’s “straight” (enough to get married and have a child with a man) but discovers she isn’t, 2) actual lesbian wears flannel shirts and listens to jangly guitar and female singers in her “artsy” home, 3) long press-and-hold female kissing, 4) one woman holds the other woman’s wrists down and kisses her, 5) somebody makes the other climax using a) her hand (invariably shown) or b) her mouth (never shown but like duh), 6) the straight woman is all confused and shit, 7) the lesbian has about had it with this confusion and shit, 8) drama happens, 9) happy Sapphic ending. Did I miss any? 3/5 stars only because it was my first time. LOGO TV probably has this on a loop.

High Art (1998): If you saw that one (points up), you’ve seen this one. Mostly. 3/5 stars only because Syd really sold it about being conflicted about her sexuality.

Room in Rome (2010): As a red-blooded yee-haw NASCAR dang-ol big-ol apple pie and baseball American male, ya’d think I’d give this 30 stars and build a shrine to it. What’s not to like? Check the cover art out. See the naked chicks? That’s the movie. The whole thing is one gigantic nude scene. Not that I have a problem with that. I watched the movie with an air of refined detachment, wearing a smoking jacket and drinking fine port with a raised pinkie. But two things drove me absolutely batty: 1) If I never hear the song “Loving Strangers” it’ll be too soon (whatever that means?) and 2) I don’t think there was a script so much as there was an outline. And that outline reads something like this:

I. They meet
1. Urging to go to hotel room (it’s in the title, like duh)
2. Resistance
3. Okay fine
II. They go at it
1. Hubba
2. Yowza
3. Booooooiiiinnng
III. They talk about ridiculous crap
1. Natacha’s Made-up back story
2. Alba’s, um, oh yeah totally made up back story too
3. Well Natacha had better get going
IV. SPOILER ALERT: They go at it
1. Mmmhmm
2. Yes dear
3. Fantastic then
V. Wait… who’s Dirk Diggler?
1. That new kid
2. Oh. Nice name!
3. More sitting around threatening to go home
4. Oh come on staaaaaay

Prove me wrong, whoever “wrote” this movie. 3/5 stars because Natacha’s hotness > Alba’s annoyingness. But she heeass to, how you say, work on Rah-shun ehhhccent, maybe with Moose and Squirrel.

Loving Annabelle (2006): Warning, warning! As if it’s not painfully obvious about 5 minutes into the movie, this ship is headed right for the you-could-totally-get-busted-for-kiddie-porn rocks, as the love interests are 40-ish teacher and 17 (!) year-old student. Again with the sophistication over here, I was giving this movie some leeway as Annabelle is a senior in high school and could be 18 (she isn’t), however I wondered if consent laws apply to teacher/student shenanigans (all signs point to no). Just the same, one thing I haven’t touched on yet is that as I watch such fare what I am wanting to do is suspend the window of disbelief and empathize with the main characters. By “disbelief” I mean it’s a movie, right? Make me feel like I’m eavesdropping on someone, not watching a line reading. I’d imagine that it’s very difficult growing up gay/lesbian and not only coming to terms with that, but navigating the relationship waters has to be somewhat challenging as well. This applies in spades to Show Me Love but does to a somewhat lesser extent here. The conflict in Annabelle isn’t who is a lesbian and who isn’t, but how both women approach the topic of a teacher/student relationship. There could have been so much more “there” there, but it’s probably on the cutting room floor somewhere. 3/5 stars and MOAR ERIN KELLY KTHXBAI

If anyone is still speaking to me after this, I’m interested to know what other films I ought to be watching.

For the purposes of this article, I am going to put aside any further mention of Barry Scheck as I don’t want this to devolve into a dissertation about the OJ Simpson trial and whether Barry Scheck was the “bad guy”, or one of them.

In my forays into learning more about the US criminal justice system, I have wondered when, or if, inmates ever truly get out of jail. Sure, officially, even here in Wisconsin, inmates in all levels of the prison system get “released”. But what then?

Even with the knowledge that the film is taking a strong advocacy position for exoneree’s rights, I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about the effects of incarceration, and how we as a society treat the “released” inmate, whether exonerated or having done his or her time.

The film does a very good job of showing how families serve a sentence too, not just the inmate. Even though the thrust of this article concerns wrongfully convicted persons, families suffer even when the guilt is real and proven. This is time that parents lose a child. Or children lose a father or mother. Or communities lose a neighbor.

It was good to see that advocacy groups do exist for exonerees, but it was also apparent the uphill battles that they are still fighting today. Being exonerated is not simply a case of saying “oops” and ostensibly giving someone his or her life back. Not everyone wants to admit error. A common theme through the film was the assertion that if someone is in jail, he or she must have done something to deserve it. And being released from jail just means that the former inmate is now a ticking time bomb, ready to commit crimes more terrible than the last, real or imagined.

One former death row inmate does appear to be a ticking time bomb, but not as a “repeat” offender. I got the impression that he was suppressing an enormous amount of rage, and as is often asked through the movie by others, “wouldn’t you be angry if this happened to you?” I believe I would be, yes. But what I did with that anger would be pivotal. To this man’s credit (at press time), he chose to channel that anger into making a difference and advocating for other falsely accused inmates.

This film has me thinking a length about my biases about accused criminals, the inherent “goodness” of law enforcement, the efficacy of prison, and how I would or should interact with ex-convicts.

And then, after feeling queasy all day, I streamed The Human Centipede: First Sequence, which writer/director Tom Six assured me (personally) would look like “My Little Pony” by comparison to the sequel.

Now that I am boned up on the HC franchise, here’s my verdict:

I really need a hug.

Act I

One day, I was musing on the idea of “horror” films and thought about what makes the really disturbing ones stick. Horror flicks don’t need to offer buckets of blood and “splatter-gore” to really eat at you. Instead, I find the movies that have a strong psychological edge to them to be far more effective than seeing who can film the goriest decapitation.

To me, the movies that scared me the most at the cellular level are ones that can be defined as the utter absence of hope.

Case in point: Phantasm. You just know it’s not gonna end well.

Neither of the HC films are rife with hope. False hope, at times, sure. But utterly, totally, spectacularly lacking in that little ray of sunshine that says “someone will get through this.” The Descent comes to mind except that movie, while gripping for about half of it, just became a samey gore-fest and I just wanted the movie to end, happily or not.

HC2 would seem to be cut from the same cloth but I found it utterly riveting.

Act II

I really don’t dig war games, in general. MW3 is strangely fascinating both interactively and passively. I do get concerned when I hear young children yacking on their headsets and wonder if this is desensitizing them to the horrors of war. I am not getting all PMRC up in here and suggesting that this is the only outlet for that to happen. But horrors of war MW3′s got. You know how people tell tasteless jokes and then tack on “…too soon?” at the end? Like telling 9/11 jokes on 9/12. MW3 has their own version of that with at least one hell-scape of a bombed-out New York City to run around shooting people in. Taking a step back and imagining “what if this actually happened”, all I can say it that we as present-day citizens of the USA should feel extremely fortunate that we can pop in a shoot-em-up game and play around in a horrific wasteland rather than look out our windows and say “they forgot to put in that building over there.”

In both films, the cast, specifically the victims, really sell it that their lives are pretty much over. The villains also sell their villainy, and in their own way show us that they’re not cartoony “evil” characters so much as, as James Woods tells us, committed to a contrary position.

HC2 is completely and utterly over the top in its depiction of horrific depravity. Focused depravity, yes. But even in this torrential bloodbath I found myself engaging with the victims and thinking about how incredibly awful their final days are. Knowing that death is the only way out. And knowing that to cling to life just prolongs the inevitable, to the delight of the tormentor.

HC1 is more reserved, and yet despite being “cleaner” it too has my very soul feeling like it was torn out of my chest and I’m a smoldering empty vessel. That’s really what this exercise is about: a Freud-approved attempt at naming it, and claiming it. Removing its power by acknowledging its nature.

Act III

I also at times wonder not simply why we read or watch fiction, but why we read or watch tales of horror. Maybe we want a good fright. Maybe we want bad people to hide from and rally against. Or evil spirits to cast out. Or something.

But Dracula is not remotely on the same wavelength as the core concept of both Human Centipede movies. As insinuated vaguely by the title, the creation of a so-called human centipede is the objective of the bad guys. Ah, but it’s the details as to how such a feat is to be accomplished that has be completely squicked out and in need of lots and lots of qi (chi, as we say it) balancing, chakra realignment, and chiropractic adjustments.

Without getting into the gory details, and I absolve myself from your curiosity of them, all I can say is that I utterly cannot imagine myself or anyone I know experiencing such horror. True, not at all fun, not the least bit entertaining, sheer terror.

The only thing I can compare my feelings about these films to is the Holocaust. I remember seeing some of the things that were found in the camps, like the wads of human hair or soap made from people, back in elementary school. Even now I can’t imagine why someone would do such things and on such a massive scale.

HC1 features three victims, for the most part, and their ordeal rivals anything dreamt up at Auschwitz.

The difference being that my soul aches and cries out angrily in response to the Holocaust because these are things that actually happened and should never, ever, happen again.

The premise of the HC franchise should never, ever happen either, and that’s probably why I am so shaken to the core. It’s a visceral reaction to a small part of me that knows that if this is the apex (or rock bottom) in sick fantasy, some incredibly deranged person has worse fantasies than these. And God help us all if they ever come to fruition.

So why is this being served up as entertainment? And why did I order it not once but twice?

Act IV

David Sedaris tells us a funny story about his cat.

Act V

My other core problem with these movies doesn’t really concern the movies at all. I think Tom Six (et al) did a fantastic job of portraying an inconvenient truth for many a lover of fantasy: biology is disgusting.

Case in point: It’s possible to wear a wedding ring 24/7/365, for years on end. You probably won’t develop a rash, or bedsores, or some infection, for reasons I can only speculate about, but in short let’s accept this as fact.

What isn’t possible is stabbing yourself in the leg 30 times with a rusty knife and thinking things will heal up neatly on their own.

Hollywood has no end of movies that defy reality, where heroes emerge from nuclear explosions with a small cut on their cheek, or someone gets shot 10 times but still has the strength to crawl 14 miles for help.

But if you’re going to sell me on the really sick stuff, sell me. If someone is locked naked in a small room for 5 months, there’d better be signs that this person isn’t rocking the most hygienic lifestyle. I understand that movie rating systems (etc) can dictate what can/cannot be shown explicitly, but come on, bleeding to death has several consequences. My window of disbelief opens wider by the frame if I’m being sold the details, not an obvious acting job.

And that’s what’s so unsettling about the HC franchise: Neither film is full of “acting”. HC2 less so than HC1.

Someone said that the villain in HC2 deserved an Oscar. I think so too, but am not holding my breath. It’s not just because the Academy tends to discount horror movies, but because even a nomination would mean having to acknowledge the film’s very existence. Unlike Schindler’s List, Hollywood will only go so far to recognize the depths of human depravity.

Act VI

I’m actually feeling better now, thanks.

Maybe it’s because, in the end, no matter how disgusting and horrific, the Human Centipede movies are just that: movies about things that didn’t happen. You can chat up the director and the actors and know that it was all makeup and believable acting.

Maybe it’s also because that even prior to this foray into sick cinema, I had something life-affirming planned this weekend and its importance in my life is strongly underscored by the counteracting effects of the HC movies.

We’re told that “love wins“. Perhaps so, but I posit that Love doesn’t happen to us, but is expressed through us. The antidote to the tyranny of evil men (real or imagined) is to be loving people.

It also kinda helped to hug my dog. He hated it, but I love that about the stinker.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the idea of online reviews, in that not everyone is going to have the same experience with a given product and it’s nice to know that it’s not just you who got a lemon. And another one after you exchanged it. And another one after that. (Looking at you, Best Buy house brand.)

But fundamentally, don’t submit a 1-star review (out of 5) for a device that serves a primary purpose and bitch moan and groan about how some arcane side feature wasn’t to your liking.

ZOMG this HDTV sucks bcuz it doesn’t render 2180P like my HD cable says it can do waaaaaaah waaaaah

(Product: 720P 32″ HDTV, says it right on the label and the freakin’ BOX)

After my Best Buy nightmare, which I will defy conventional wisdom by not retelling in agonizing detail, I took a flyer on a refurbished Sony BDP-S280 Blu-ray player at the local outlet mall. My thought was that since Sony, you know, invented Blu-ray maybe they have a clue how to make a reliable player.

Hey! They do!

What I Like

• The menus are modeled after the Sony Playstation 3 console. I don’t have a PS3 but now I can pretend that I do.
• Features galore, man. Old player = Netflix which I don’t subscribe to, CinemaNow which was a rip-off, Pandora, Napster, and something else. New player = where do I start? YouTube, Hulu, Slacker, Pandora, Amazon Instant Video (big fan), and lots of other audio/video goodness. On the side, that is.
• Remember how it’s a Blu-ray player? Well it’s awesome for that.
• It also plays standard DVDs without crashing.

What I Don’t Like

• The unit is wide. Much wider than my AT&T U-Verse box, and like a yutz I have them stacked the opposite of common sense. However in my defense I wanted to be able to yank the player out of my entertainment unit and yell at the Sony outlet for selling lemons if that was the case. I’ll make time to fix the stacking job someday.
• The remote doesn’t come with batteries.
• Entering information into the player (user names, passwords) is like old-school texting, where you seemingly have to press the number keys to scroll through the letters you want to pick from. I found out that you can cursor around and enter the info that way but it was a happy accident that I found that out.
• Some of the web services are better served up via computer, such as YouTube. It’s a nice perk to see it on the big screen but it didn’t add lots of value. BUT it’s a side feature, not the reason I bought the thing.

The Verdict

People may balk at the fact that wi-fi is not included in the unit by default, BUT, I prefer wired anyway because the connection speeds are fantastic, HD video from Amazon is DVD quality, silky smooth. Plus my router is right next to the TV so stretching an ethernet cable a whole 4 feet isn’t like scaling Everest.

I’m sure there are better Blu-ray players out there but for $55 USD (after taxes) I’m very, very happy.

This is not the player’s cue to shoot sparks out the back and only show “Barney and Friends” clips on a loop.

These days, I have a Wii (yeah, yeah, talk to the hand) and my shoot-em-up game was, hmmm, the tank game on the “Wii Play” disc. Eventually it became the Lego® Star Wars game, and thanks to kid-sitting my (now) ex-neighbor’s son, it evolved into Call of Duty: Black Ops.

All things considered, I liked Black Ops on the Wii mostly because I hadn’t seen it on a high-def console like the Sony Playstation or the X-Box. The kid across the hall preferred to play Modern Warfare 2 so that’s how we partitioned off the user experience between consoles.

One day, I saw Black Ops on the Playstation and it ruined my Wii experience forever. Not enough to buy a Playstation, as I really am not a gamer and my paltry Wii game collection keeps things nicely balanced.

This past Tuesday, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (MW3 from now on) was released and it’s like this, yo:

OH MY GOD.

Back in the bad old days of Black Ops, I was reading some web forum and there was complaint after complaint about how Treyarch had taken over development of the game from Infinity Ward and ruined it completely. Huh. The Wii version, however lacking, seemed Call of Duty-ish enough to me. Now Infinity Ward has taken the reins back and my life is officially over.

I watched for countless hours one night as the campaign mode was demonstrated online by some hopped-up 9 year-old (probably), and wow, was it amazing, for a silly shoot-em-up game. The demo was on a high-def console, which added to the pizazz, but my expectation was that the Wii version would be watered-down but generally playable.

Understatement (or lowest expectations ever) of the year.

I gathered up my outmoded Wii games, yes, including Black Ops and went to GameStop and did the trade-in thing. It was nice to get the hottest game of the season for $17 after taxes and trade-ins. I popped the game in the Wii and SHAZAM! my jaw has yet to come back from the floor.

What I Like

Face it, people really play COD for the multiplayer mode. Right off the bat, I like that you can skip the intro video and go directly to multiplayer mode. Black Ops made you watch the splash video and blah blah blah.

I like that the look and feel is like the Playstation version (for example) only as if you plugged it in to a standard-def TV. Yes, I wish the Wii was high-def. But feeling like I have the Playstation version is a huge step up from the lite rock that was Black Ops.

I like that you can’t “just” trick out a weapon and buy up all of the good equipment and go freak nasty at like, level 5. Actually some people do manage to do that in MW3 as evidenced by “Cheater’s Row” on the leaderboards where magically people maxed out on points and levels after the game had been in circulation for 2 days. DAYS. That’s not physically possible short of cheating (hacking). In fact, some guy on the headset (you can listen in without one which is how I heard this) said that he had a confrontation with a blatant cheater that resulted in the cheater somehow hacking into the guy’s Wii and jacking the game up. I think that was Black Ops, though.

Anyway, you have to level up yourself and your guns. It’s cool to unlock some new thing and try it out and truly customize your weaponry.

I like that everything is amped wayyyy up compared to Black Ops. More guns, more attachments (including Heartbeat Sensors which apparently look cool but accomplish very little), more, more, more. All of the maps are flippin’ HUGE compared to Black Ops. That seems to be leveling the playing field somewhat as new players come online and have to figure out where everything (and everyone) is.

I really like that the perks can be upgraded to “pro” without (so far) having to play game modes like Capture the Flag that I’m really not interested in.

I like that most of the players are on the same footing, unlike Black Ops where some Level 16 Prestige player could run wild over a level 1 n00b. My motivation to hurry up and upgrade was to avoid becoming a Christmas n00b.

What I Don’t Like

I really don’t dig war games, in general. MW3 is strangely fascinating both interactively and passively. I do get concerned when I hear young children yacking on their headsets and wonder if this is desensitizing them to the horrors of war. I am not getting all PMRC up in here and suggesting that this is the only outlet for that to happen. But horrors of war MW3′s got. You know how people tell tasteless jokes and then tack on “…too soon?” at the end? Like telling 9/11 jokes on 9/12. MW3 has their own version of that with at least one hell-scape of a bombed-out New York City to run around shooting people in. Taking a step back and imagining “what if this actually happened”, all I can say it that we as present-day citizens of the USA should feel extremely fortunate that we can pop in a shoot-em-up game and play around in a horrific wasteland rather than look out our windows and say “they forgot to put in that building over there.”

As a side note, one of the maps is a mall called “Arkaden”. I was shocked to learn that it is a real place, in Pottsdamer Platz. Seeing the photos of the actual mall and then playing MW3 where, among other things, a military helicopter is burning in the atrium is disconcerting.

I really don’t like people who employ cheats in video games. To me, it’s one thing if you’re playing a one-player game and you use a cheat code (or more). It’s you versus the computer, go crazy. But person-vs-person, it’s aggravating and sad. Really? Ya can’t just play the game and let the chips fall where they may? It’s not honorable (as if video games are) and certainly not an achievement to claim the top spot of the leaderboard by hacking code. Hell, why don’t I get doctorates from the entire Ivy League by hacking their report card database? Pathetic.

I don’t like this “known issue” (patch pending) that causes the Wii to corrupt your save file and you literally lose everything. I made great strides on my first night of playing MW3 only to have the game crash and POOF it was back to square one. Someone bragged that he backs up his save file but I don’t see how he did it, as that option is greyed out on the Wii Data Management menu.

The Verdict

There’s absolutely nothing I can say here to persuade or dissuade anyone from buying (or not buying) MW3 for the Wii. Maybe the people who played Black Ops were disgusted by the experience and think it’s downhill from there. False. Maybe you don’t like shoot-em-up games and that’s fine too. Don’t buy it then. Most likely, if you’re gonna get it (by hook or crook), you’re gonna get it. And you’re gonna love it.

I hear there are even more cool things on the disc but I’m about to hit level 40 (player) and 28 (gun). I’ll muck about with that other stuff later. Or not.

However, I was troubled by the following video:

(Click here if video is not displayed)

On the surface, it seems like a harmless PSA for smoke detectors, by way of the Twiddlebugs who live in Ernie’s flower box.

But look closer, and see why the 99% of us who grew up watching Sesame Street should be outraged about this 1% of the branded offerings on YouTube:

• In another video, Ernie explains that he built the Twiddlebug home himself and donated it. So why do they have a superintendent? That suggests that someone is charging rent for what was meant to be charitable housing.
• The superintendent nails the smoke detector to the wall when in fact smoke detectors are mounted with screws. Clearly this faceless landlord is scrimping on payroll and did not hire a separate Maintenance bug, who would have had the skills to mount the smoke detector properly. Instead, the superintendent tries to make do and as a result violates code and ultimately puts the Twiddlebug family in grave danger due to shoddy workmanship.
• The young male Twiddlebug thinks the smoke detector is a radio, which is a direct result of media conglomerates buying up the spectrum, squeezing out independent radio stations, and depriving listeners of choice. The young bug is hip enough to know Neil Young’s “one note solo” when he hears it, which is in fact, groovy. Yeah, yeah, yeah!
• The Twiddlebugs have no furniture, and are reliant on “found art” to decorate their drab home. Because no huge leaves exist in their fragile ecosystem which Ernie is exploiting for the sake of a 3% uptick in Q4 profits, one can only assume the leaf came from a “big box” store that caused local retailers to either make severe cutbacks in labor and other costs, or shut down entirely.
• The superintendent leaves the ladder up after doing the smoke detector installation, displaying a callous disregard for Twiddlebug safety and the general aesthetic of the home.
• The young female Twiddlebug is the only educated member of the family, due to skyrocketing tuition costs and school district consolidation. The family hopes there will be a trickle-down effect as the lone educated family member imparts all of her knowledge to the rest.
• The Twiddlebugs live on beans, apparently. Actually, it was “beans” before the Great Recession, now it’s “bean” in the post-bailout era.
• Father Twiddlebug offers up a solution to the burnt bean fiasco, in an example of the psycho-sexual realpolitik of the Patriarchy™, subjugating women and children to paternal “wisdom”.
• Ernie represents the Nanny State™, always watching over the Twiddlebugs in Big Brotherly fashion, meddling in their affairs for the “greater good”. Ernie also represents the “Orange Man’s Burden” that many Muppets® resent having to carry for less fortunate Muppet characters.
• Ernie says he is coming “to the rescue” but snickers, in a display of socioeconomic warfare where the “haves” (Muppets with watering cans) purport to help those in need but in reality are creating Katrina-esque disasters in order to profit from them.
• Cutbacks in science education and “teaching the controversy” result in the Twiddebugs relying on the Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy to determine causality and therefore become enslaved by the religion-state and thus blinded to the machinations of the Shadow Government (FEMA) and consumed by “entertainment”.

It’s all in the video, man.

I suppose I should not have let curiosity get the better of me and seek out the source material for the “Julie” half of Julie & Julia, but what can I say, I’m a process nerd. If any good came of this experience, it was coming to a place in my life where I could look upon the work of Julia Child and receive her message.

And receive it I did, although I must admit I have a long way to go on the path of slavish devotion to Julia Child, forsaking all other cooks.

Then again, she never did that either.

My discipleship inched along since writing the aforementioned article. I moved to Kenosha WI later that year and in my efforts to acclimate to the area I found a small independent bookshop just before it went out of business. Despite being so tiny, I held a spark of hope that maybe it would have some cookbooks for sale, and maybe, just maybe, a well-worn copy of From Julia Child’s Kitchen would be in stock.

Well, yes and no.

The store had a copy, but not a well-worn one. Instead I snapped up a near-mint (!!!) copy for – and I am not making this up – $7.95 USD. I’m supposed to be wearing down my copy with countless hours of love and adoration but frankly I am afraid to gunk up the book. This is how hoarding starts, I know. I really do need to crack the cover more often and revel in Julia’s voice – and she has a voice, even in print – but for now it is sitting closed and at the ready.

My serendipitous find took a further back seat to another bookstore treasure: As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto. The New York Times book review pretty much nailed the target audience:

Now comes “As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto,” a book for completists, the sort of pathetic losers who’d line up to buy a book of Child’s grocery lists, were it available. Well — full miserable disclosure — I am exactly that type of pathetic loser. So I picked up “As Always, Julia” with a modest tingle of anticipation. A good book of letters beats an almost-good novel any day.

Too true. Somebody get cracking on compiling those grocery lists, ‘kay?

I misread the book jacket in my amazement that any book by or about Julia Child was at the cheapie bookstore and erroneously thought that Avis DeVoto was one of the authors of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which this book purports to give insight to the creation of through the correspondence of the chosen subjects. Wrong. I clearly don’t have a copy of Mastering… yet, but all things in good time.

Avis DeVoto instead was married to Bernard DeVoto, who I have no recollection of but in my defense he was before my time. I got the general impression through the correspondence that he was very active politically and wrote influential magazine articles, and occasional books. I am surely selling him way short but the life and work of Bernard DeVoto will have to be explored in greater depth (by me) at a later date.

Julia Child writes Bernard DeVoto a letter essentially saying “hear hear” that American stainless steel kitchen knives are useless, and Avis, who handled his correspondence, writes back. The 1950′s equivalent of email pong happens, and over time two people who have a thing for kitchen knives develop a bond that would last a lifetime.

(Yes, I know that before “email pong” people actually wrote letters to each other, but I couldn’t resist.)

So… how was the book?

What I Liked

• Both Julia Child and Avis DeVoto make wonderful use of the English language, typos and misspellings aside. Avis excuses herself from one letter to tend to the laundry that is hanging on a clothesline and notes that it’s the sort of chore in autumn that (paraphrased) “makes you wish you never had children, lived on the East coast, or been born.” Julia Child is full of sparkle when discussing the ins and outs of “cookery bookery”.
• Julia Child became even more human, to me. Yes, I know she was human, but as is often the case with celebrities, I feel, idol worship sets in and on some level it becomes a revelation that (gasp) Julia Child did housework or Avis DeVoto had to wash a pressure cooker – by hand! The political bantering (more like commiserating) between Julia and Avis is off-putting for some, I’m told, but I had no idea what Julia Child’s politics were prior to reading this book. I don’t suppose it amounts to a hill of beans, in the end, but it was still interesting.
• I had Julia Child pegged as a process nerd prior to reading this book, and by her own account she was selectively so. Namely, the process nerd hat went on in the kitchen, but as she put it this didn’t translate into other areas, like wanting to know all about how cars worked.
• I had no idea how many title changes Mastering… went through prior to its first pressing. I blame Hollywood. I also blame the tendency myself and others have in developing a mind set that, for example, because the finished product is so named and is iconic, it was always thus. Wrong. I’m a fool for details like this. I liken in to a bootleg record I once owned of Pink Floyd performing The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety… in 1972. (The finished product was released in 1973.) I enjoyed hearing how the rough cut differed from the iconic finished product. Same holds for Julia Child in the 1950s.

What I Didn’t Like

• Hate to be a spoiler, but the ending really let me down. Having chosen to tell a specific story through this correspondence, Joan Reardon (the editor) seems to run out of fuel right around the time when Mastering… was being edited down for its first pressing. It probably also didn’t help that Julia Child moved not only back to the USA right around this time, but within spitting distance of Avis, which probably put a damper on letter writing.
• The political stuff while insightful in some ways also gets tedious. I understand that the editor was going for thoroughness but maybe some well-placed (and timed) “[...]” would have cut the monotony. Robert Butts handled this in writing (transcribing, more to the point) the many Seth books with his wife Jane Roberts by saying “what followed was personal material for Jane and I.” Yes, I get it that we’re effectively reading Julia Child’s diary, so it’s all personal, but again, there had to be a middle ground somewhere. Maybe not. It would have saved reams of footnotes, however.
• The book ended. Noooo! More more more! Grocery lists, I say!

Not only did this book really fire me up about cooking real, honest food rather than “heating things up”, it also got me thinking about living in Kenosha, and straddling the line between Illinois and Wisconsin, and more to the point, Chicago and Milwaukee. There’s lots out there that I’m not interacting with. There are two colleges a short drive away and I haven’t been keeping abreast of what sorts of activities they’re sharing with the locals, like lectures, movie screenings, and so on. Carthage volleyball season is here (just not at the actual college yet) but that’s not going to fill a thimble relative to all of the other goings-on.

It also got me thinking about networking, and how that can be either a genuine or cynical act. Julia Child did benefit immensely on a professional level from her association with Avis DeVoto but at no time was I left with the impression that either party was cynically using the other. They both do a fair amount of name-dropping, but instead of this being meant to impress, it’s instead meant to convey the sort of life both women lead. Oh dear, Adlai Stevenson wants to come over for dinner. Oh shucks, Arthur Schlessinger is going to be my neighbor. Gee whiz, dinner with another batch of Fulbright scholars. This could be very off-putting without context, and in context, I got it. Both women, yes, had connections, but they led lives that enabled the formation and continuation of those connections.

Throwing back to the Julie Powell blog and movie, it struck me the sharp contrast between Julie Powell, stuntwoman, versus Julia Child, culinary colossus. Time and time again, Julie Powell is assured that her stunt – and let’s be real about it, that’s what it was – would make her famous. Julia Child, on the other hand, is assured from the early going (literally one chapter of what would become Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 1) that the end result would be a masterpiece. It disappoints me to think that literary fame apparently now requires some gimmick for what ultimately provides short-term gains. Julia Child wasn’t seeking personal glory in the 1950s, she was simply tired of useless cookbooks and thought there should be a better way to explain how to cook. And she, with loads of help, did so. I wonder what sorts of visionaries are yet to come to the fore, and how the world will be shaped by their emergence.

I heartily recommend the book, however I think it’s fair to say it’s for the die hards.