For the Geeks: NSFW
June 23, 2008
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.
Top Eight Mistakes I’ve Recently Made: Addendum – lines you should not cross as a gamer
May 18, 2008
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.
Melodies
April 13, 2008
Infamous Danish cartoons: free expression vs. being an asshole
February 20, 2008
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.
Happy Halloween
October 31, 2007
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!
(sur)reality
October 3, 2007
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?
Passive Depressive Hiatus
October 2, 2007
Kenji and I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who’s been reading and supporting our first foray into online comics.
Happy Labour Day!
September 3, 2007
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.
Bottled Water News
July 28, 2007
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.
PANDEMIC ALERT (modern media style)
July 3, 2007
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.
Now, for legal purposes, let me be clear: It is my subjective opinion that Dan Gardner of the Ottawa Citizen is an asshat. I do not make this claim as objective truth, but as personal opinion.
Why do I believe this? Let me show you.
In today’s Ottawa Citizen (May 2nd 2007), Dan Gardner wrote a small editorial piece comparing David Suzuki to “Grampa Simpson.” Basically the thrust of the article is that David Suzuki is turning into a crotchety old man.
Despite (apparently) deeply respecting Suzuki, Dan spends his 750 some odd words talking about how David Suzuki uses tricky alarmist techniques to blow this whole ‘environmental issue’ out of proportion.
I sincerely hope Dan lives long enough to die of some pollution related illness, or at the least has a child that is horribly affected by this ‘little’ environment issue.
Hindsight
May 1, 2007
Staring into the mirror, he decided, this was in fact the worst day of his life.
At 37 years old, he stood about 5’9 and pretty trim. He wasn’t bad looking, which of course was how he had gotten himself into his current situation.
He looked down as his feet, as if for some kind of reassurance.
Smiling back at him, his big toe tried to cheer him up: “Its not that bad man, chicks will dig it!”
“Really?” he asked carefully, his sunken shoulders daring to pull back ever so slightly.
“No you idiot,” his smart-assed toe replied “ not only do you look like a complete moron, you’re fucking talking to your feet. You are so loosing it!”
Bitch: Etymology and Select Typologies
April 5, 2007
In several recent posts the term ‘bitch’ has been bantered around quite loosely. We here at Beats Entropy have used the term in various ways, sometimes with loving respect, other times with disquieted camaraderie , and occasionally it has come up in somewhat more serious discourse.
Etymologically speaking, the term ‘bitch’ has a few common and a few uncommon meanings.
Today, and not for the first time, a colleague and I sat down and spoke briefly of issues and problems related to a work context. While I have intention of neither betraying my colleagues trust, nor of boring you faithful readers with the details of such a discussion, it did raise an interesting point about ‘fault.’
My conversation today was not the first time I have considered the important issues of fault in the context of problems. As a child I was constantly and creatively engaged in interpreting the subtle nuances of such a concept, always ready to provide a new interpretation that would shift the burden causality from myself a convenient friend, sibling, foe or inanimate object.
Likewise, as a teacher, I have defended less forgiving notions of ‘fault,’ helping students to understand that missing key directions due to illness, but failing to follow up and discover what might have been missed, constituted a degree of ‘fault’ for a failing grade.
Read the rest of this entry »
One Voice Movement: update from the department of optimism
January 28, 2007
Obviously the world political stage is a nuanced and complicated arena. While the following is by no means a simple panacea, it is a warming reminder that what is represented in the news is not the only ‘reality’ available to us.
