Since logging onto Xanga has given me nothing but grief, and I am moving on and away both publically and professionally from this blog, I am giving it up in favour of my new persona.  You can find me at Bibliotech.  You have to be a member to comment, but the blog will be open to all, and I will have it forwarded to my Facebook feed.  It will be a blog for librarian nerdliness, feminism, theology and book and computer game chatter, so I do hope you will all take a look, bare though it is at the moment.

It's been a good run Xanga.  I won;t be deleting this blog, so all the entries are available until time immemorial. Or the Rapture. Whichever.

Comment on an entry from the Datingish site, re: "Coming to terms with my Girlfriend's Past"

"As a man, I completely understand how you feel. In fact, I used to be just like you. What I have came to realize is that the present is worth more than what happened in the past. It will still bug me a little, naturally, but I am always able to reason it down. I think it is just part of growing up.

Warning: This blog contains spoilers to Watchmen (the graphic novel for certain, and the movie most likely.)  Continue reading at your own peril.  It also contains a lot of speculation about parts of history I most certainly know very little about. This should prove sufficient material for the Facebook cut; alas for Xangans, you're out of luck and will have to use your own willpower to stop reading now.

I was a little bit shocked I wanted to write this blog. Of all the Watchmen characters, Rorschach is not actually one of my favourites. The Comedian and Dan/Nite Owl and Laurie rank much higher with me.  Hell, even Moloch is more endearing to me in many ways.  When I think of the panels that stick out in my mind, there isn't one Rorschach panel in the bunch. But on the way in this morning, I was thinking about the inauguration of Obama, and how it's been a while since the US has had a someone worth writing an essay entitled "My Hero" for 5th grade composition. 

Then I remembered the essay insert of Walter's included in with his examination.  His hero was President Truman, for making a difficult choice and saving lives by dropping the bomb on Hiroshima (though in the Watchmen world, not on Nagasaki, it seems.)  Even as the vigilante Rorschach, Truman seemed to be a compass by which Rory set his morality.

When confronted with the truth of what Ozymandias did in order to unite the world in peace, Rorschach refuses to go along with the plan that Laurie, Dan and Jon realize.  "Never compromise," he says "Not even in the face of armageddon."  He leaves the compound to tell the world the truth.  And yet, isn't what Adrien did exactly the same thing that Truman did in Japan?  He saw two world powers bearing down on each other, never stopping until mutual destruction was assured, and with one quick slash, cut the Gordian Knot in two. 

Sure, it was batshit insane. Knowing what we do now about nuclear fallout and radiation sickness, so was dropping a nuke on a civilian city.  But what exactly in Rorschach's mind differentiates the two, to the point where he won't compromise on Adrien's plan?

Any ideas?

Titillating, seductive, even pornographic in nature, the assault on our media-infused senses is relentless.  Every time your favourite program goes on break, it's there and in your face.  I'm looking at you, Burger King.

Oh sure, the Angry Whopper commercials were bad enough.  Watching a woman flip out over something relatively minor was like nails on the chalkboard of my life.   Watch it multiple times in one commercial break, and we're talking near murder-suicide levels of hate.  But I realized I never knew hate until I was confronted with the Whopper Virgins ad slots.  It took a few viewings for what I was seeing to really sink in, but once it did, the sweet rush of rage filled me with a burning desire for justice.

I refuse to link the video here because to do so will only increase the pervasiveness of the viral campaign, and give BK what they're looking for.  Assuming they're telling the truth in the adverts, Burger King sought out "Whopper virgins" - people living in obscurity in Thailand, Finland, Brazil and so on, who have not been embroiled in the latest Pepsi-Coke war between McDonald's and Burger King.  These so-called Whopper virgins are invited to a taste test between a Big Mac and a Whopper, and presumably choose the Whopper every time.

I'm having a hard time articulating exactly what pisses me off most about these commercials.  Is it the maudlin expressions the Burger King employees have over bringing civilization to these indigenous folks who have never had a burger before?  Is it the presumption that civilization can be packaged in burger form?  Or that these people have become pawns in some sort of media campaign for something so minor it's barely a blip on the radar of those who do have frequent access to burger shops, let alone for people who have bigger fish to fry with oppressive religious regimes, struggles to uphold sustainable agriculture, poor health care, or lack of educational resources?  How about that these people are shown to point and grunt at the burger of their choice? They are not even given a voice.

Here's a message for you, Burger King: THESE ARE PEOPLE.  They are not tools for promoting your shoddy-ass merchandise.  You are not World Vision, or Oxfam, or anything remotely of worth.  You are the tooliest corporate tool that has tooled lately, and you suck.  Everytime I suffer a burning desire for a burger, I'll make one at home, and donate what I would have spent in a fast food joint to Heifer.org.  If there are problems with first-world feminists and development agencies dictating to developing nations how it is supposed to be, how much worse are you?  Burgers =/= civilization.  How many shots of people choosing the Big Mac, or neither, or shrugging or puking did you delete?  If I were to question studies developed by actual research groups, how much more do I question your methods?  Did you even follow ethical research standards? I think you did not.

You're pretty much ranked up there with the Walton family, Curves and Dominoes pizza as evil corporate shills.  Big Tabacco ain't got nothing on you guys. Congratu-fucking-lations.

(And now to soothe my rage, here's an adorable puppy:

I ended up listening to One Winged Angel, the final boss theme from FFVII on my way in to work today, and it got me thinking about how much I simultaneously loved and loathed that fight.  The first time I hopped into the crater to defeat Sephiroth,  I was like, okay this is interesting- ooh pretty angels! And then, in a 14 minute long battle, at least 11 of which were his flipping summon, I ended up dying. 

Normally, my motto is "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again (while swearing copiously)"  But the indignity of having to sit through what felt like hours of Super Nova, I say "Nope.", climbed out of the crater and began the quest to breed a Golden Chocobo, which would allow to me acquire two massively powerful materia: Knights of the Round and Mime.

Now, because Chocobos mature in real-time, you would essentially get two excellent chocobos up to snuff by racing them at the Golden Saucer.  Then you have to wait for them to mature; this usually meant for me I would either spend time levelling my characters and/or putting down the controller and going for a walk, cleaning the house, doing homework, whatever.  You mate two great chocobos to get a Blue or a Green one, race that up to awesomeness, mate the parents again until you get either a Blue or a Green chocobo (the opposite of the first one) and race IT up to awesomeness. Also, you better pray you get one male and one female.  Then put down the controller again, because they have to mature before you can mate them.  Mate them to hopefully acquire a Black Chocobo.  Race him/her up to awesomeness, head out to the plains to catch a foxy chocobo mate, race him/her to the S-class of racer at the Golden Saucer, mate them up and pray for a Gold one.  All told, the process takes very little game time, but at least 10 hours of real time.

So that's what I did, because I can't do things the simple way.  I got the Knights of the Round materia, Mime materia and Quadra Magic. Off to the crater, and BOOM. Safer Sephiroth gets two KOTRs to the face, and then four Bahamut ZERO because I was feeling generous.  He didn't get even get a chance to cast Super Nova, which was good, except for the fact that my six summons were of equal length.

Then we get to watch Tifa's CGI chest bounce up and down during the escape cut-scene following Sephiroth's demise. Whoops!