Beats Entropy

Over the last week there has been a great deal of discussion over the above editorial cartoon, which depicts two NYC policemen, having  just shot a chimpanzee, concerned over who will write the next economic stymulis bill in the United States.

The cartoon, which was printed in the Tuesday February 17th  edition of the New York Post (certainly not to be confused with the New York Times), apparently was commenting on two recent events: 1) the signing of the economic stymulis bill by U.S. President Barrack Obama, and 2) the shooting of an escaped chimpanzee in Connecticut.

Somewhat predictably, and I would argue likely to the joy of the New York Post, the editorial cartoon has sparked a heated debate across the U.S. and throughout the various tubes and tunnels of the interweb.  Some, like Rev. Al Sharpton, argue that the comparison of President Barrack Obama to a chimpanzee is racist – pure and simple.   Others argue that political satyre has a long history of crude, mean, and downright nasty depictions of various leaders – and that this comic would have been printed, in the same way, regardless of the ethnicity of the leader it referred to.

Now, despite being the token bleeding-heart-liberal here at Beats Entropy, I do not exactly side with Rev. Sharpton.

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As our faithful readership may have surmised, Passive Depressive has been on a bit of a hiatus for the last month or so.

The break corresponded to a bunch of other obligations, adventures – including an intercity move, as well as the births and deaths of various other projects.

However, the long break is coming to a close.

Starting on Wednesday October 15th, Passive Depressive will be returning – with a new comic every wednesday – until the series is concluded.

So thank you all for your patience, we’ll try to make sure this last leg of the journey is well worth the wait.

A friend and fellow geek passed this along to me and I had to share it with the rest of you, it begins a bit slow, but rest assured it is well worth the watch.

What follows is a brilliant short, dramatizing the adventures of small group playing Dungeons and Dragons, reunited after some time…

I would like to dedicate this mildly offensive, crass, and particularly base video post to the memory of George Carlin – who fucking rocked.

Caveats and disclaimers: As a gamer and geek, the following are not meant to unduly target or chastise the noble followers of this digital pastime; but rather present some important guidelines based on minimum standards of social viability and dignity.

8 - Celibacy. Video games should never come before sex. The only two exceptions to this rule are a) if you require more than twice the standard dose of any medication to function sexually, or b) if you have had sex more than four times in the last two hours – in which case your partner is just being greedy and should learn to share. (1)

7 - Food. While it is acceptable to consume a meal while playing video games, one should not compromise the taste, texture, or nutritional content of a meal so as to facilitate gaming. Therefore, occasionally choosing to eat pizza while gaming is ok; choosing not to heat it up even though you hate cold pizza so as to avoid mess, not so much. Similarly, blending your pot-roast, broccoli and potatoes into an easy to consume slushy is also across the line.

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Its been a pretty big news month. The democratic nomination race in the US, Fidel Castro has officially resigning as the president of Cuba, the mundane details of war, natural disasters, and famine, not to mention today – a solid chunk of Toronto being on fire. Perhaps then it’s out of a sort of middle-child-like attention starvation that Danish Newspapers reprinted the infamous cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohamed sporting a bomb shaped turban.

Predictably, not only has this derailed the past two years of work the Danish Government has invested in trying to get Danish cheeses unboycotted around the world, but has put good old Denmarkia back on the newsertainment map.

Shortly after the reprinting, coincidently about when Pakistan’s ‘little election’ has been eating up valuable front page space, the Danish authorities foiled a plot to kill the comic’s original creator.

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From everyone here at Beats Entropy, except Dr. Entropy who hates halloween thanks to a “lubriderm, pumpkin, and duct tape” bullying incident from his youth, wish you all the best for this most sacred time of the year.

Whether you dress up, pass out candy, worship dark forces to summon unspeakable evil, toilet paper houses, mail out forged pink slips to random coworkers, or dance through the costumed masses wearing only a caramel apple and a sense of adventure – we wish you all the best in your halloween frivolities!

The following is cell-phone video showing a rather disturbing scene during a recent question and answer session with ex-presidential hopeful John Kerry at a University campus in the US.

Rather than give you my views on the matter, I ask just one question:  what would you have done if you were in that audience?

What will you do when you are (inevitably) in that audience?

Kenji and I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who’s been reading and supporting our first foray into online comics.

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Having already raptured all that can be said about the second most sacred day of the year, all that remains is to wish each and everyone one of you loyal Beats-Entrophiles  a  safe and debaucherous Labour Day.

So kick back, take off your pants, grab a handful of chocolately badger droppings and watch this video from the always brilliant Kevin Quain – a.k.a the next Tom Waits.

So, a while back I shared my thoughts on the glorious bottled water industry.

This morning I noted the following article, and just had to share it with you all.

Added to my numerous issues with bottled water, is now the knowledge that the process by which some companies ‘filter’ the tap water they bottle can be as inefficient at 5 to 1, that is to say that as many as five liters of our tap water can be needed to produce one liter of ‘purified’ water.

Absolutely fucking amazing.

In local news today, no sources explicitly denied that a new strain of the H9Y virus (a virus that nobody at the World Health Organization claimed wasn’t linked to Avian Bird Flu) had mutated sufficiently to become an air born contagion.

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