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.

6 - Epilepsy. In the event that the excessive staring at fast moving, brightly flashing, images causes momentary or permanent seizures or other symptoms of epilepsy, it is essential that you lie and pretend you experienced similar symptoms in another context. Never, under any circumstances, admit that the 14 hours straight of Sonic the Hedgehog preceded your first epileptic episode.

5 - Epiphanies. It is, without exception, not ok to have a moment of enlightenment while gaming. To experience a moment of atma or the divine while solving jumping puzzles, killing ninjas, stealing cars, racing karts, shooting zombies (yes even when killing zombies), or questing to save any manor of ‘princess’ is absolutely unacceptable. In the event that this does occur, it likely signals not a moment of true light and wisdom, but instead a tiny glimpse of the anemic state of the rest of your existence, or alternatively that you work a high tech or cubicle job.

4 - Ending Contracts. Be it a social contract such as a relationship, common law status or marriage, or an economic contract such as employment; one should never let a contract be ended while gaming. This, however, must be distinguished against ending such a contract. Thus, it is not ok to have a significant other walk out on you while gaming, it is in contradistinction, perfectly legitimate to end a relationship while gaming – especially if the ending does not affect game performance and adds an element of petty satisfaction to the endeavor.

3 - Dying. It is never acceptable to die playing video games. Be it in a natural disaster or at the end of a 76 hour caffeine pill fueled escape from an otherwise meaningless life, no dignity can be maintained if one is snuffed out while gaming.(2)

2 - Crapping your pants. There are few things more humiliating than dying while playing video games, crapping your pants is however one of them. If given the choice being soiling yourself while playing a game or having your intestines explode and fill your insides with toxic organic waste – always choose the latter.

1 - Weeping. It is absolutely and without question not ok to weep or sob while enjoying digital entertainment. Barring tears of joy, which do not technically qualify under the term ‘weeping,’ there is only one exception to this rule: the consecutive breaching of more than three of the above mentioned rules. So, for example, while weeping would not be acceptable after being fired and having a mild epileptic seizure; sobbing would be appropriate if one’s significant other had just broken it off after one had refused to have sex prior to ‘beating the level’ only to have the liver and spinach shake come back like a colonospy gone awry.(3)

Footnotes

(1) This of course does not in any way relate to either copulating or masturbating while gaming, though proper etiquette does prohibit masturbation while conversing via a headset or online chat system.

(2) While not a full on exception, a death related to anything noted in footnote (1) does constitute a mitigating factor.

(3) In some exceptional circumstances fewer than three ‘rule breaches’ may combine to justify weeping – such as having a spouse or partner die moments after a great epiphany about spiritual wellbeing during a mutual 30 hour gaming binge, or loosing your job as a after accidentally letting slip the fact that you had a small seizure while doinking your boss’ Sims character.

]]> http://beatsentropy.com/2008/05/18/top-eight-mistakes-i%e2%80%99ve-recently-made-addendum-%e2%80%93-lines-you-should-not-cross-as-a-gamer/feed/ w0rmwood http://beatsentropy.com/2008/04/13/melodies/ http://beatsentropy.com/2008/04/13/melodies/#comments Sun, 13 Apr 2008 04:52:57 +0000 w0rmwood http://frambojan.wordpress.com/?p=763

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.

So now, somewhat painfully, we are back at the beginning. Danish newspapers crying that they have a right to freedom of expression, and waving wildly and pointing at Muslims as crazy extremists hell bent on stopping them.

While personally I do not support the decapitation of individuals for the production of any illustration, no matter how offensive, I would not go as far as to say that I wouldn’t condone the act under any circumstances. Indeed just today I met a person on the subway who I, at least momentarily, considered beheading.

However, my point is that, not being particularly religious, its not really fair to compare my response to such a cartoon to those who believe such depictions require violent retribution (and here let me be clear that I fully understand that a huge majority of the Muslim communities around the world do not condone such violent reprisals).

But lets think this through fairly.

What, for example, would likely be the result of printing an inflammatory cartoon of this nature about other religions? What, for the sake of argument, would the average devout catholic Italian have to say about an image of the Virgin mother masterbating while her son, Jesus Christ, sodomized a prepubescent alter boy? How would that one go over in the Vatican?

How about a cartoon depicting Old Testament God, mowing down on a bacon sandwich, sitting on a thrown of broken Palestian children, while giving Moses the ten commandments? Anybody be angry then? Think that would be a good T-shirt to wear to Synagogue?

The image that the infamous Danish cartoon depicts is offensive, period. Its offensive not only because it goes against a tenant of Islam, but because its meant to be offensive.

People who jump up and down suggesting that printing this cartoon is a matter of free speech, are right. But free speech doesn’t mean free from consequences.

Sure you can run through Russian Martial Arts festival wearing a Stalin T-shirt and spitting ethnic slurs, sure you can dress yourself in a British Army Uniform and piss on an Irish Flag in a pub on St. Patrick’s day. But you’re still an asshole for doing it, and you sure as shit shouldn’t be surprised if you get the crap kicked out of you, much less have trouble selling your national cheese abroad.

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.

Passive Depressive certainly took on a life of its own, and we are both really happy with what we produced over the last 100+ comics.

We, the PD crew, are now taking a short break before starting the next phase of this project.

Hopefully over the next several weeks we will be working on some PD shirts, character tid-bits, and a big surprise for our imminent return.

Stay tuned to Beats Entropy for a first look of things to come, as well as a few treats along the way.

Yes, yes… we know what you’re all thinking: “When will the Denny themed edible thongs be out?” (except of course Engtech who is also wondering if we will be making them in sizes to accommodate boy-parts)

Well, while we are not giving up on the edible undergarment market entirely, we regret to inform you that some minor issues with spun sugar splinters and ink poisoning (who would have thought you couldn’t use normal ink) have delayed our foray into this field - however, the standard sack shaped upper torso covers remain a high priority!

Again, thanks for the feedback, loyal reading, and support! We look forward to amusing, entertaining, shocking, and probably seriously offending many of you upon our return.

All the best,

the Passive Depressive Crew:

Kenji Toyooka & Philip Steinersen

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.

The new purported air born strain of H9Y, it has been surmised, may potentially have symptoms including (but neither limited to nor confirmed as): internal bleeding, menstrual spotting, celiac onset, hair loss, topical irritation, death, gastric-intestinal bloating, and cause the recently deceased to mindlessly rise from the grave craving the sweet tang of human flesh.

Several of these symptoms have been reported across the globe, with almost 840000 North American men admitting to some symptomatic hair loss since 2004. While there have been no confirmed sightings of any walking corpses, some experts have suggested a long history of corpse-reanimation. Douglas McTyre, formerly of the English department at MIT, noted in an unpublished manuscript that “zombies have existed in stories for over three centuries.” Similarly, in a recent cook book, Sumita Nhoora suggested that “most folklore and mythology has its basis in reality.”

Without official comment from any medical experts, who have neglected to comment on this potential catastrophic outbreak, one can only surmise the level of financial and social devastation such a pandemic might produce.

Already in the last 48 hours, there have been several reports of violent incidents in several North American city centers. Despite no evidence that these incidents are connected to a possible H9Y infection, police and rescue workers have been unable to unequivocally deny the possibility of the diseases involvement.

Sergeant Larry Boite of the LAPD went on record as saying he “wasn’t a doctor” and that he “couldn’t definitively comment on the health of the suspects” in what is initially being labeled a gang related shooting.

Similarly in Madagascar, several government officials admitted that they had no emergency pandemic plan, in the event of a H9Y viral outbreak. Indeed, some medical doctors conceded that they had not even heard of the H9Y virus.

Clearly, as this potential threat continues to have undefined impacts across the globe, more needs to be done to guard against any unforeseen or unimagined consequences. Republican Senator Olivier Johnson suggested that such an illness “would clearly suggest a need for citizens to remain well armed and suspicious of anyone out of the ordinary.” Likewise, north of the border, Canadian politician Joe ‘Rock Voisine’ Bertrand, suggested that “a closed border immigration policy might potentially slow the spread of any contagious outbreak.”

As we continue to monitor this developing story, we will endeavor to bring hourly updates as to how this growing threat could impact your daily lives, until such a time as we are unable to do so.

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.

What prompted this strange ‘discussion’ on Suzuki? Well this week Canadian Minister of the Environment John Baird released a report suggesting that in trying to meet Kyoto Accord standards, Canada would be plunged into a terrible recession. Baird’s report was supported by several top economists, so obviously it must be the only accurate take on the issue.

Dan’s issue with Suzuki is that, in response to this report, Suzuki suggested that the first thing we needed to do was stop listening to ‘the economists.’ Why is this an issue? Well, as Dan gleefully notes, in the past Suzuki has quoted famous economists about the potential economic costs of our fucking dismal environmental policies.

So, Dan’s point, David Suzuki is apparently flip-flopping on the whole ‘listening to economists’ issue.

But Dan doesn’t stop there, he goes on to portray Suzuki as a tired old man who can’t see anything positive in the world.

Dan, in my opinion, is not only a fucking idiot, he is abusing his journalistic license.

The story here should be that David Suzuki, a renowned advocate for the environment, disagrees with that Canada ‘can’t afford’ to meet its Kyoto commitments. Instead, we get an off-ed piece calling Suzuki a crotchety old man.

The environment is a complicated issue to be sure, but this kind of complete ignoring of the ever more imminent dangers is really getting tired.

Just yesterday scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colarado’s National SNow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) released their findings noting that Artic Ice was melting at rates up to five times that which computers models had previously predicted. That is to say, these researchers have found that computer models outlining timelines of the impact of global warming are too conservative, and the impacts appear to be up to 30 years ahead of predicted timelines. (source)

So, is David Suzuki getting tired of giving the same message? Ab-so-fucking-lutely!

Quite frankly, I don’t blame him.

David Suzuki was more than likely trying to alert people to the importance of the environment when all that existed of Dan Gardner was a stiffy in his pappy’s pants. (How’s that for crotchety-old-man talk Dan?)

So, if you’re listening Dr. Suzuki, please know that some of us (the not stupid ones) have heard some of your messages over the decades.

Its an uphill battle, and people in North America really aren’t going to wake up until something truly devastating happens (like a crazy tsunami in Thai-land, but to white people).

Until such a catastrophe, those of us who can try to promote whatever change we can.
Meanwhile, people like Dan Gardner make weak references to out of date pop-culture characters, instead of using their privileged position as journalists to try to help spread the word about a need for change.

Well done Dan, you certainly made an impact on me.

I officially will not purchase any paper you write for, and I will encourage others to do the same.

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!”

He was loosing it a bit, he agreed. But who wouldn’t buckle under this kind of stress. He was 1900 miles from home, his flight left in just under 2 hours, and he was standing in front of his motel mirror in the boxers and tee-shirt he had worn the day before getting verbally degraded by one of his toes. Yes, yes he was definitely loosing it.

Taking a deep breath he closed his eyes and tried to gather his thoughts.

“Maybe its not so bad” he thought “maybe all I need to do is relax and look at things from a different perspective.”

He took three long deep breaths, opened his eyes, and stared back into the mirror.

Reality persevered.

Closing his eyes tighter this time, he actively tried to image something else. “Think Buddhist” he ordered himself “think beautiful opening blossom.”

He opened his eyes, and stared back at his new full head tattoo, it was clearly not an opening blossom.

“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck” he chanted quietly, his brief flirtation with calm slipping away.

“Maybe I can get someone to touch it up” he pondered “maybe they can make it look like a…”

It was useless, she had done her work all too well, and now he had a very realistic vagina tattooed across his entire head.

His shoulders sagged down even further, contorting his body so thoroughly he nearly toppled over. He felt nothing, just a pallid cold acceptance – he was fucked.
Over the last 5 hours since he had awoken to discover his new body art, he had progressed through all the classic stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression…

Of them all, anger had been the most proactive, though sadly not the most productive.

He had gone back to the tattoo shop, confronted her, screamed, yelled. It did not go as he planned.

Even before he had gone back and confronted her, he had suspected she was a lesbian, or at least bi-sexual. Nobody could tattoo a fur-pie like this one, without having had a fair amount of personal experience – and he certainly didn’t mean by looking in the mirror.

She had been just as drunk and high as he was, and barely remembered anything about the night at all. There was something about a crying lesbian, mortified that she had blown a man the night before, that really took the wind out of a good angry tirade.

In the end he had spent 45 minutes consoling her, adding a drool and snot stained sports jacket to his already considerable acquisitions on what had supposed to be a perfectly normal business trip.

Staring again into the mirror, he couldn’t help but compliment her work. Down to the finest details, including working in the only remaining stubble on his otherwise bald head, the likeness was remarkable. Having been with more than his fair share of women back in the day, he had to concede, it was pretty beautiful.

He just wished it wasn’t on his head.

Sitting down on the corner of his bed, the events of the night before began playing through his mind for the thousandths time that morning. It had started out pretty well, he had closed his deal, wined and dined his clients, and made out pretty well at the novelty slots in the lobby. It had been there that he met her. Tiny tank top, full sleeves, and a walk that said she knew how hot she looked; he hadn’t had much of chance from the onset. She was clearly not his type, which as luck would have it, was exactly his type.

She had offered to buy him a drink, he agreed, things progressed.

By 3am they were loaded and at her shop, him in a chair that belonged in a dentist’s office, her in his lap trying to convince him to let her tattoo him. Drunk as he was, he wasn’t going for it. Not that he minded tattoos, he was just the kind of guy that liked to think things through. Actually it was a quality he didn’t really like about himself, always too prudent to change his routine. Well, maybe he would go crazy and buy a new brand of cereal next time he went shopping, but he sure as shit wouldn’t be getting a tattoo.

Then it happened, she offered a playful deal.

With the benefit of a hangover and a really sore fresh hairy-snapper tattoo covering his skull, he was able to see that perhaps it hadn’t been the strongest choice. However, at the time, and with no small help from the copious drinks throughout the evening, he had decided to go for it.

It had been pretty glorious, not to mention ending a bit of dry spell for him, but all in all he was thinking it probably wasn’t worth it.

“JEWISH!” he suddenly yelled in time with his epiphany “I’ll convert to Judaism, they wear those little hats all the time!”

“No, wait” he reconsidered “weren’t those hats really small, and weren’t they only worn on the back of the head?”

But still, maybe the idea could work. Muslims wore skullcaps sometime, he reasoned. Or better yet, his mind raced, Sihk! He was certain he had read some article about how Sihks could even wear their turbans to work.

“Yes,” he decided “I can always go Sihk.”

Finally having reached some level of peace, he went about hurriedly packing and getting ready to catch his plane home, blissfully unaware of the beautiful full panel necro-beastial orgy tattoo, done as a parody of the last supper, which covered the whole of his back.

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.

Primarily bitch is understood to be noun referring to a female dog or fox. More generally, in this sense, the term bitch can be extended to a variety of animals via conjunction, for example: wolverine-bitch, donkey-bitch, etc…

The second definition of the word, no longer in decent usage, is a noun describing a lewd or sensual woman, which in modern usage has come to be a derogatory term for an especially malicious or treacherous woman (still often associated with sexuality).

While most of our current modern usages are derived from its derogatory meaning, bitch also has other technical definitions, including its application to a promiscuous male (meaning essentially the same as ‘dog’), a mining term relating to a specific metal rod used as a tool, a verb meaning to frequent the company of lewd women (as in: Let’s go out bitching tonight), and finally as a noun describing a primitive Canadian oil lamp.

As noted however, most modern uses of the term relate to its more derogatory meanings. Yet even within this limited scope, the term has come to be used to describe a plethora of typologies. While the faces of ‘bitchness’ are vast and multifaceted, I have provided – for convenience – four primary archetypes denoted in the modern use of the term.

Type 1: Le Biche or ‘The Bitch’

Also described as a capital ‘B’ Bitch, Le Biche or The Bitch is purposefully malicious and cruel individual (self identifying on the feminine end of the gender scale) who navigate social tact like a Panzer through a puppy mill. Le Biche is strong, smart, socially apt though often tactically short sighted, and can castrate a full grown Ox at 70 paces with a well placed stare.

Type 2: He-bitch

Typically associated here with men of alternative sexual natures, the he-bitch (or in long form he-bitch-man-whore) meaning draws itself from a combination of the lewd woman and dog-man definition. Dripping with sexual innuendo, the he-bitch is characterized by lewd and catty behaviour, as well as the occasional unpermissioned man-toy borrowing.

Type 3: Bitches (generic-male)

Not to be confused with the he-bitch (above), or the bad ass bitches (below), bitches refer to a growing constituency of heterosexual males who practice a particularly lame and flaccid sort of overcompensated masculinity. Best embodied by the punk guy who hits his girlfriend in an epic fight, gets a bottle of gin thrown at him, loses the girl cuz she aint gonna take his shit no more, and proceeds to call up her mom to see if he can get reimbursed for the lost booze. Bitches are typically less than brilliant, compensate for low self-esteem with unpractised machismo, and rarely have any working conception of responsibility or duty. These are the bitches that, as a wise woman once put it, would only be good to be ground up for cat food, but for the fact that many cats do not like to eat pussy.

Type 4: Bad Ass Bitches

Best described in the August 2006 Beats Entropy post of the same name, bad ass bitches are the elite of their gender (born, converted or other-identified). They are as Jack Sparrow is to pirates, as shotguns are to zombie hunters, as mint-chocolate-sex-lube is to all other lubricants. Simply put they are best of the best, who remind us that contrary thousands of years of misogyny, paternalism and patriarchy – the human spirit cannot be contained or limited by invasive categorizations of masculine and feminine.

Of course we here at Beats Entropy support the god-given right to twist and goad language to whatever cruel purposes one might desire. The above typologies are neither exhaustive nor authoritative, but rather a small insight into the noble lineage and diversity of this important term.

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.

But ultimately my position on the notion of fault comes down to a distinction between the concepts of ‘blame’ and ‘responsibility.’ To be uncharacteristically un-verbose, my position is essentially:

We may not always be to blame for the situations in which we find ourselves, but we are always ultimately responsible for them.

This position, as noted above, rests on the distinction between being to blame for something, and being responsible for something. Now in our modern use of language, the two concepts are often used nearly interchangeably. To blame someone, according to some dictionaries, is to assign responsibility. This however is an unfortunate conflation of two very different ideas.

The act of blaming is the act of assigning causal fault. To blame someone for event X, is to assign the ultimate cause of event or outcome X as the fault (through action or inaction) of the person blamed.

In contrast, to be responsible for event X, at least in the original understanding of the term, means to be answerable or accountable for event or outcome X.

While there is certainly a degree of similarity in being to blame for a thing, and being responsible for a thing, they are also quite different.

This returns us to the oft forgotten point.

It is my experience that we, in modern western society, are altogether too focused on the assigning of blame, and altogether too negligent when it comes to assuming responsibility.

I may not always be to blame for all the contexts in which I find myself, but I remain ultimately responsible for them.

To say the same thing in another way…

I do not need to be the cause of a problem, to be accountable for helping solve it.

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.

So yesterday a good friend asked me a very important question: “why do you bother?”

The question was in regards to a series of posts I made in a public forum. The forum, which was loosely discussing Canadian politics, was very much dominated by a vocal minority of what I like to describe as postmodern conservatives.

What are postmodern conservatives? Well, what I mean by pomo-cons (as I affectionately refer to them) is a relatively quick growing segment of the 20-30 somethings educated population that have married basic critical thinking skills they acquired in university or college, a post modern critique of hope and optimism, and a petty bourgeois retreat to fiscal and political conservatism. The result is a group of young, relatively intelligent, ardent conservatives eager to point out the folly of civic engagement and touting a neo-con agenda dressed up in quixotic intellectualism, enter the pomo-cons.

Now lets pause for a moment. While I am probably describable as a ‘lefty,’ this is not about being against conservatives. Despite not usually seeing eye to eye with many on the political and social right, I do listen and respect those who are willing to discuss their ideas and beliefs. Even here in the close nit family of Beats Entropy, we do not all share the same political visions. I do not begrudge people the right to hold to what political and social values they choose, provided they (and I) remain open to a meaningful dialogue through which either or both views may change.

The distinction I make here is with those for whom this dialogue is closed, or worse still, those who zealously defend their apathy though it were a political stance. This sadly rising constituency often represents a very vocal minority, most especially in the all too accessible virtual public sphere.

So, to return to that ever important question: why bother? Why bother trying to engage civilly and intelligently with those who will not do the same? Why be patient and analytically rigorous when your opponents have already made up their mind?

Well, here is what I think:

I consider these forays as sorts of gladiatorial battles. Across a metaphoric expanse are the opponents, not other individuals who are willing to forward a position and listen to others, but (often) ignorant idealogues bent on a verbal bloodbath.

“Why fight?” my friend asks.  Or more importantly, why maintain some decorum while your opponent froths at the moth and spits insults regarding your parentage? Why fight when the goal of meaningful constructive dialogue cannot possibly be met? Why bother to engage when the only possible outcome is the unsatisfying defeat or analytic-emasculation of unreasonable and unreachable zealots?

It is not for this sadly unreachable adversary (like the frustrating pomo-con) that one must carry on, but for the invisible masses who watch.

It is for those who observe quietly from the sidelines of the public arena, watching and learning. It is for them that I try to always address, calmly and politely, the challenges (often neither calm nor polite) that are brought forward.

To believe, as I believe, in the power of discourse, is to believe that ones words carry weight and meaning beyond the scope of their primary recipient and into the ocean of common meaning.

We lead by both the manner and content of our speech and actions.

Whenever possible I try to make both of those worthy for others to be inspired by.

8. The expression ‘if first you don’t succeed, try, try again’ should not be universally applied, this is especially true when trying to use a sexually charged metaphore with a coworker and not come off as creepy.

7. Nine out of ten is a great score in almost every context. However, one exception is when attempting to remember a dinner guest’s violent allergies while cooking the evening’s meal. Also, as a point of information, it takes approximately 27 seconds for a person’s throat to close after said person, who is allergic to peanuts, ingests a spoon of “hot n’ spicy Thai beef surprise’ – when the ‘surprise’ is a peanut filling.

6. No amount of explaining can mitigate the negative impact of certain situations. A mayonnaise stain on the crotch of one’s pants is one such situation.

5. Somewhat counter intuitively, Dora the Explorer Ice cream contains chunks of neither Spanish underage girls, nor monkeys. Additionally, complaints about this gross misrepresentation in advertising are not met sympathetically by grocery store managers, especially if they have children, and those children are female, and those female children are of Latin decent, and those Latin female children have pet monkeys.

4. Regardless as to whether a colleague is from Holland, or a skilled baker, never, ever agree to check out their ‘dutch oven.’

3. Someone being diagnosed with AIDS is never funny. Ok, technically the misogynist womanizing high school jock who tormented you and your friends in high school being diagnosed with AIDS and being forced out of his high paying government job and having to move to Idaho and work as a clown for children’s birthday parties is a bit funny, but still one should not laugh.

2. Cats are a lot like pancakes, they do not do well in the microwave.

1. Contrary to what one might think, ‘statutory rape’ laws in the US do not apply solely to ‘statues’ under the age of 17, but in fact also to people, especially 15 year old swim team finalist people from Missouri out having a night on the town with fake ID.

There are very few things in this world that illustrate the simultaneous absurd and heinous nature of late modern capitalism as well as the bottled water industry. Now, before you run off, hear me out. This is not some guilt producing tirade aimed at making you give up some petty luxury in order to forward some neo-hippy abstract philosophy.

This isn’t even strictly about the environment (that place we all depend on for existence, and from whence most of our stuff comes), this is about being fucked (in a bad non-consensual great uncle Metaphoric sort of way), and you sure as shit don’t need to be a radical tree hugger to get incensed about being molested.

I know what you’re thinking, how can he start by making wild comparisons between bottled water and sexual abuse? Well let me show you.

The basic business model for bottled water is as follows:

Produce plastic bottles as cheaply as possible, typically using neither a sustainable nor environmentally responsible production model. Fill empty bottles with tap water, sometimes filtered, sometimes not. Sell bottled water at exorbitant prices.

Essentially what happens is that companies like Pepsi or Coca-Cola take water that you pay for with your taxes, filter it (or not), then sell it back to you at approximately 200% the average cost per liter of gasoline.

However the fun does not end here.

Using the massive profits of selling our water back to us, these companies invest their earnings into the lobby to further legitimate the selling of commonly owned (us) fresh water sources to private companies (them).

Overall this is tantamount to someone kidnapping your partner, pimping their sexual services back to you at crazy prices, then using the profits to finance a lobby to legalize kidnapping and pimping.

The crazy part is, we seem to have bought into this system hook, line and sinker.

Bottled water has now surpassed all other produced (non-alcoholic) beverages in terms of profit. Companies like CocaCola and Pepsi now support their soda-pop empires on the vastly higher profits of their bottled water industries.

Beyond being a corporate success, bottled water has gained remarkable cultural capital as well. While carrying a bottle of coke might be seen as corporate collusion or unhealthy gluttony, the mere carrying of a purchased bottle of water seems to come with a litany of health related assumptions.

One might think that this bizarre 46+ billion dollar empire is doomed to eventually fade, after all, one can simply refill a purchased bottle for free at any sink or fountain. Of course, enter the spin doctors. In emails recently circulated, authors claim that reusing bottles from bottled water can cause carcinogens to seep into liquids and cause harm to the drinker. This is categorically not true.

The source of this rumor was a master’s thesis from a student at the University of Idaho. The media reported on this work prematurely, and without it gaining adequate peer review. In reality the only agency who recommends not reusing bottles is (brace yourself for a shock) the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA). They do not claim any risk of carcinogens, but instead note concern about the possibility of germs being passed along by improper cleaning procedures. Similarly, false rumors about the safety of reusable bottles (like nalgene) continue to surface throughout popular culture. All the while billions upon billions of dollars are being spent purchasing a product that is already publicly owned.

Similarly, the industry thrives on the perception that bottled water is safer than tap water. Again, sadly not true. The standards for public drinking water are markedly higher than the standards regulating ‘bottled’ water. While much of this water simply comes out of the tap (making it no safer than water we access from the tap ourselves), other bottled water comes directly from fresh water sources (lakes, rivers and the like) but is processed by corporations without the explicit oversight of the Government. These corporate facilities are not subject to as strict a set of safetly measures, and even if they are in violation of others face only the same impotent fines that protect our environment.

Of course, in every villain there lies the potential for good. For example, a recently launched company (in association with the United Nations) is selling bottled water in order to fund philanthropist goals in Africa. While not a registered charity, the young Canadian who started the company has been channeling the majority of his profits to Africa to provide sources of fresh drinking water to refugees of war torn or impoverished areas.

These kindnesses not withstanding, one has to stop and take a moment to consider what one is participating in. To buy bottled water is to allow oneself to be swindled, to pay more per gallon for one’s own water than gasoline, and to support a corporate lobby that would see all fresh water privatized and our annual water costs increased thousands of fold.

So whether you’re from the left or right, whether you like to hug trees or lynch hippies, whether you recycle or compete with your neighbors to see how many bags of garbage you can fill in a week, you are being swindled.

The bottled water industry is fucking our collective couches.

So for the sake of your chesterfield, your honor, and the future of public and commonly owned fresh water - stop buying bottled water.

Not only will you be doing a good thing, you’ll be saving thousands of dollars a year, and showing the corporations getting rich on our collective stupidity that enough is enough.

This is just a quick note to let all our loyal fans know that Passive Depressive will be a bit slow to its feet this week. We can neither confirm nor deny accusations that certain members of the PD team were arrested for the huffing of paint and for aggravated ‘frottage’ with a parking meter on New Years Eve, but we can promise that parts 3 & 4 of the Passive Depressive Holiday Special will be up on Friday and Monday respectively.

For those of you who allowed friends, family or holiday Yule log binges to keep you away from your regular sad blog addicted routines, you can check out the first two parts of our seasonal opus (originally posted last week) here and here.

I stumbled across this educational clip about a very interesting type of fungus…

8. Buying, wrapping and putting away holiday gifts well ahead of time is a great way to reduce stress on the holidays, except when giving pets.

7. Holiday season starts promptly on December 1st. Going grocery shopping on a Saturday afternoon in December is therefore NEVER a good idea.

6. No matter how much your loved one might need this, some gifts are better left ungiven.

Besides, the ladies see right through this sham …. err … or so I’ve been told.

5. Listing ‘booze’ on your holiday wish list more than three times is typically interpreted as a cry for help.

4. Slipping LSD to kids before they go to sit on Santa’s lap is only funny until you get caught. On a related note, apparently in ‘prison culture’ giving kids illicit drugs is right up there with pedophilia on the popularity list.

3. Certain unconventional holiday traditions can get one into a bit of hot water at office Christmas parties. Also, as a point of information, a peanut M&M fired from a hunting grade slingshot at a target inside 6 feet is capable of breaking the skin.

2. When severely intoxicated, bubblegum vending machines and condom vending machines look despairingly similar. However, one can really hurt oneself trying to blow a latex bubble.

1. The expression ‘made with love’ does not refer to an actual ingredient. Also, gingerbread with semen in it burns faster.

Some Blogs pride themselves on timely content updates, dedicated contributors, and some degree of continuity in their posts. Obviously, we here a Beats Entropy admire those qualities, however, none of us possess the requisite skills, morals, or gumption to act on these points.

Heck, most of us consider it a good day with we overcome our lethargy enough to put trousers on before we go to work.

That having been said, it has come to our attention that Dr. Entropic has dropped the ball on letter day, and despite the almost non-existent hierarchical structure that exists here at BE, the rest of us have unanimously voted to take over Letter Day until Dr. Entropic gets a handle on his little ‘problem.’

So, without further ado, we bring you the return of letter day.

Our first letter comes in from upstate New York

Dear Beats Entropy

I run a cub scout troop, Local #435, and one of the badge programs I have created is the “Wrestle a Mythological Creature” badge. My intent was to teach children the sweet longing for something that can never be, only to reveal on their last day how it’s all a lie and they had been made fools of. I feel this would give them powerful insight into adult life, and a healthy distrust of authority.

The problem is one child, Richochet, came in today claiming to have successfully wrestled the Unicorn of the West Woods, and actually possess the necessary supporting puncture wounds. Now I suspect he was just knocking giant icicles off church eaves again, but am inclined to give him the badge anyways for sheer moxie. Do you feel this sort of pandering will detract from the message I’m trying to impart?

Rolly Rothschild, Upstate New York, USA

Fielding the Beats Entropy response, Mr. AJ Valliant.

Let me tell you something Rolly, No.

If you are going to lie to children (and you should do so early and often) you need to make sure they have the freedom to lie back to you into return; provided they take appropriate steps to cover their tracks. For every Easter Bunny or Jesus you lay on them, they get a closet monster that beat up their sister or hobo that broke in and ate all the pudding. One of the most import lesson we can impart on a young life is how to lie, and lie convincingly…so convincingly that some of the more precious ones blossom into meaningful delusions, that might sustain us through the dark days of adulthood.

Additionally, if you have no proof that he didn’t actually wrestle a Unicorn you would be doing the child, and the Unicorn of the West Wood, a grave disservice by denying their struggle. Shaming a Unicorn is poor choice my friend…as poor a choice as one can make.

AJ Valliant

Our second letter comes from New Platsburg, Euro-Disint District

May 24, 3043

Dear Beats Entropy

I am writing you as part of my grade 4 temporal mechanics seminar. As part of this project each of us is being asked to write an email and use the chronotome particle matter stream projector to send it back in time.

Normally we are only aloud to send spam back, but rather than the old ‘send the instructions for cold fusion back in a penis enlargement email that people will ignore’ trick, I asked for special permission to talk to you. My teacher was a bit worried at first, but after going through the historical archives of your ‘interweb’ she agreed that you and your site lack legitimacy on such a fundamental level that there is no way anyone would believe you were receiving messages from the future.

Anyways, my question is: What the fuck is wrong with you people? I mean I’ve read the history links and you guys seem to have had your heads so far up your own asses that you didn’t see the climate shift induced ice age until people started getting killed by flash-frozen pigeons falling from the sky.

Do you have any idea how cold it is here? I have to spend 15 minutes ever morning de-icing my public hair, and I’m only 11. So from all of us in the dome covered frozen vista that now is Earth - Fuck you guys!

Obama Newton Headwig
New Platsgurg, Euro-Disint District, Dome 236

On behalf of Beats Entropy, w()rmwood replies:

Dear Future Boy,

First let me say how honored we are to receive our first email from the distant future, thanks future boy.

It is of course too bad that we had to get it from a whinny little bitch. Oooh, so its cold. Oooh, I have to live under a dome. Poor me!

Look you little puissant, allow me to let you in on a little secret – we know our double cupped lattes are going to doom you to a life of frigid darkness, we are aware that driving our gas guzzling SUV’s will more than likely mean that within a few short years ‘sunsets’ will join the ranks of ‘clean drinking water’ and ‘safe hitchhiking’ as mythological bygones.

In short what I am saying is that while yes, at his point in history most rich and privileged humans are willfully blind to the pain and suffering they inflicts on others (both in the present and future) through over-consumption and waste, we here at Beats Entropy are part of the minority that know. But let me tell you something, this kind of whinning will accomplish very little with us.

So suck it up twinkle toes, and make the best of it. I hear snow is good for snow cones, try one of those.

Sincerely,

w()rmwood

Our next letter comes from a fellow blogger, Eric (the Extrapolator)

Hi

I just wanted to drop you a line and let you know I like your strip. I have started up a website (address in my sig) where I’m encouraging submissions from all of the other good artists/writers I find on wordpress, based on sort of the idea of cross-pollination - if we get your audience and my audience and several other peoples’ audiences together, we have, like, one big audience, right? Anyway, a couple of people have taken me up on it already, and I thought I’d send you an official invitation to be included if you’re interested. I basically credit the creator and link like mad back to your wordpress site so people can read more. Check out the site and let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Eric/The Extrapolater

Response: Collective Beats Entropy Effort

Thanks for the invitation Eric.

We appreciate your feedback and thank you for your offer.
However, Beats Entropy is already a collective effort, dysfunctional as it often is, and so we aren’t really looking to expand beyond the reassuring borders of our own little domain just yet.

Like a gelatinous mass of cockroach eggs planted in the inner ear canal of some hapless street person, we are wriggling with potential, but not yet at the point where we are interested in leaving the squishing and nourishing confines of our fleshy nest.

Perhaps one day, as our number increases and our meatbag home becomes hallow and unwelcoming some of us might venture forth, but for now we must politely decline your offer.

Best of luck with your venture…

Sincerely,

The Beats Entropy Collective

Following we have a querry from Mr. Corso

Dear w()rmwood,

Would it be considered non-consensual parkour if the subjects involved were corpses? I’m not sure what their stance on the matter was before they died, so I feel hesitant to claim to be part of the league. I just find it so much easier to throw bodies when they’re not alive and flailing!
Sincerely,

Mortimer Corso

Response by w()rmwood:

Good question Mr. Corso.

While I am by no means an expert on non-consensual assisted parkour, I think the answer to your question is yes, with some caveats.
If the individual was not involved, or interested in being involved, with Parkour before he or she died, and you are planning on hurdling the body as the ‘parkourer’ and not vault or ride the body as part of your own parkour, I believe yes - it would be accurate to consider this non-consensual assisted parkour.

However, if the individual (when living or in a will) was pro-parkour and expressed a desire to be involved, then you would be more accurate to describe your endeavor as team-parkour, assisted-parkour, or good old fashion body tossing.

sincerely,

w()rmwood.

It’s the latest viral trend to jump up and capture the urban hipster community. From Prague to Lima, from New York City to Moscow, non-consensual assisted parkour is the latest and greatest in underground fads.

Based on the already overexposed and stylistically stale parkour craze, non-consensual assisted parkour is an edgy new pastime that combines traditional urban callisthenics with a new postmodern approach to voluntarism and participation. Where as traditional parkour participants transformed their mundane urban contexts into fantastical landscapes through fast paced gymnastics, non-consensual assisted parkour pushes the boundaries by implicating otherwise passive observers.

For the non-consensual assisted parkourer, not only do inanimate objects of the urban landscape become transformed into their playground, but so too do their fellow citizens. These brave new cultural explorers test the bounds of their art form by propelling not themselves, but hapless others.

While, like its predecessor, this cutting edge activity defies any real categorizations, certain ‘moves’ have become standardized.

For example, though there is no formal training for non-consensual assisted parkour, most beginners start with some of the simpler moves like the staircase and cell phone downwards dance, the surprise bicycle brake cut, and the ever popular muttering person bus hug.

For the more advanced practitioner, more creative individualized techniques have been developed including the jump out the window or I’ll shoot you move, the see how fast you go with a hornets’ nest stapled to your cheap suite maneuver, and the legendary I slipped 8 grams of meth-amphetamines into my pastor’s coffee gambit.

Of course, as with parkour before it, non-consensual assisted parkour has its detractors. Some call it simple tomfollery, and others have compared it to a juvenile anti-socialism that ranges from shoving to bedlam. But notwithstanding these social conservatives and trend-phobic naysayers, it would appear that non-consensual assisted parkour is hip, trendy, and despite being devoid of any real purpose, here to stay.

 From the department of hope and optimism here at Beats Entropy.

8. The International Joint Commission of Canada does not do exactly what one might guess they do from the name. Consequently, showing up to an interdepartmental meeting with pizza and a copy of Harold and Kumar is not necessarily as strong an idea as it would otherwise be.

7. While technically not illegal, doing lines of powdered sugar off the edge of your desk to get through the mid afternoon may well be misinterpreted, and can lead to reasonable to serious misunderstandings.

6. Not withstanding the fact that factual accuracy is a legal defense against claims of libel and slander, it is considered poor office etiquette to comment on the proficiency (or lack there of) of one’s colleagues.

Also, the phrase “useless as tits on a bull in spring” is actually quite difficult to prove in terms of factual accuracy.

5. It is not ok to adopt an orphan for money. It is especially frowned on if the orphan’s parents are still alive. Unless you are Madonna.

4. Defending the planet from the onslaught of the walking dead is only ‘ok’ when said walking dead are not young children masquerading as the walking dead in a ritualistic attempt to collect candy. Additionally, ‘I’m sorry’ is typically not enough to appease grieving parents.

3. Just because Neil Patrick Harris has come out, does not necessarily mean he is in your league. Also, according to San Antonio law, standing outside a Hotel naked chanting ‘I need you Doogie’ is classified as a public disturbance.

2. Non-consensual assisted par cour