Is there a Market for Competitive Retro Gamin'?

In the wake of Andrew Gardikis's unshatterable Super Mario Bros. 1 world record (which was THE benchmark for gamin' records) being shattered as of last June, it seems like a great time to venture into the world of competitive retro gaming, see if there's a market out there for this spectator sport, and whether or not it would or could be the next big thing that hits society.

Essence of a Spectator Event

It's not always polite to get all philosophical and shit...but one must ask...what is a spectator sport? What are the inherent and ubiquitous requirements for something to be regarded as a spectator sport?

Well, you need a competition and you need spectators. That's about it. In its base form as long as someone is watching a group of somethings or someones engaging in some sort of competition than yessiree that something is a spect sport.

Take this game known as "Pooh Sticks" from the smash hit television show Winnie Da Pooh,

Pooh Sticks Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q0gectxDNQ&t=3m12s

Now, some might question whether racing sticks down a river is really a spect sport...yet in this fictional case the spectators do seem to be enjoying themselves as they watch the sticks race down the river.

F Apple, F Orange. GO BANANA!

Similarly, one might question why on the smash hit television show The Simpsons...Bart, Nelson, and Ralph raced an apple, orange, and banana down the school bus floor. As it passed by all the other human units on the bus they all seemed to cheer the fruit on (well maybe not the banana which found great difficulty in gaining momentum) as they rolled down neck and neck. Some may have rooted for the apple, some for the orange....in the end there could only be one winner of the bus fruit race just like there could only be one winner of Pooh Sticks.

As long as the viewer doesn't know what the end result is...then it's great fun to watch it unfold. Yet, Pooh Sticks and Fruit Racing are just primitive forms of spect sports. To up the enjoyment of the spectators watching the event you need to up some key factors.

1. The Skill
2. The Drama
3. The Stakes

1. What if the sport in question wasn't a random event between sticks and other inanimate objects? What if two or more humans decided to test their skills at something against each other? It would make the event more enjoyable to watch. The more the skills are of a legendary nature the better. I know I can't hit a 500 foot homerun, so when I saw with my own two eyeballs both Henry Rodriguez and Vladimir Guerrero do it live...I was like "holy shit, man. He hit that ball really really far." That is The Skill, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

2. I know wrestling is fake but that doesn't mean I still didn't enjoy watching my boy Bob Backlund back in '94 put that pretty boy jabroni Bret "The Pink Boy" Hart in the inescapable Cross-Face Chicken-Wing until Bret's mommy had to throw in the towel so her precious little baby boy wouldn't get his precious little arm broken. I knew it was a shtick but it didn't stop me from cheering on Backlund, laughing at that diaper-baby Bret Hart, and thoroughly enjoying the whole thing. You know what that is? That's The Drama, that's what that is.

3. Sometimes your pride is on the line, sometimes your wallet is on the line, maybe the belt is on the line, even your career might be on the line...or is it something even greater that is on that line? There will come a time where maybe you are traveling through a great wasteland in a post-apocalyptic future and you may stop by at a barter town governed by Tina Turner....and maybe you'll wind up fighting in some manner of a "Thunder Dome" where a midget riding on the shoulders of a giant retarded man will be your opponent. You know what will be on the line in that case scenario? Yeah, your friggin' life, dude. That's what I call...The Stakes.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEHE4E_I5FM)

 Sometimes the stakes are just too high and you gotta back outta the deal...

The Wizard...

There once was a movie which made playing Nintendo into a spectator sport. The Wizard. Anyone of the ages of 25-35 remember this movie? Yeah, I bet you do...and if you said "no" then forgive me if I accuse you at this juncture of being a filthy liar...because everyone knows this movie, everyone.

There's a great divide between how people regard this film. Some look at it as a horrible film which boiled down to being a 2 hour long info-merical for Nintendo to promote some crappy products it was hawking (i.e. The Power Gluv). Other people (me included) view this as the movie which initiated the template for Retro Gaming as a Spectator Sport.

The picture starts out a little slow, but after the scene where Beau Bridges starts smashing up a car with a shovel...the audience gets pretty pumped...and it really starts gettin' goin'.

This movie changed the way I played video games. I used to in pre-1989 days play video games in an area where behind me was a sofa, a table, and some wood paneling on a wall. Yet, when I played Mario 3 after seeing this Masterpiece...I never played to an audience of wood paneling ever again. That wood paneling before my very eyes morphed into 12,000 screaming people...12,000 screaming people watching me play Super Mario Bros. 3 in the depths of my mind. After gettin' 3 stars in row and getting the 5 Up screen...I didn't turn to wood paneling to raise my fist, I didn't turn to the sofa and acknowledge its feverish applause...no way...I turned to the 12,000 screaming people to raise my fist...I got those 5 Ups for the people!

The Wizard changed the game.


Documentaries 

Competitive gaming has had a good spotlight in the form of some very well made documentaries that have been done in the last decade. King of Kong and Ecstasy of Order: The Masters of Tetris are good examples.

Kong features the rivalry between one Steve Wiebe and one Billy Mitchell, while Ecstasy showcases various Tetris legends including Thor Aackerlund.

Now before we get any further, it should be noted that being a movie that wanted a certain formula to itself, The King of Kong obviously shticked it up a bit. The rivalry was intensified as the hero/baby-face/white-cowboyhat (Wiebe) was pitted against the villain/heel/black-cowboyhat (Mitchell) character.

Anyone who knows movies knows that you don't have a movie without a good villain character and Billy Mitchell is one of the best on-screen villains I've ever seen. Even if the fans of the film identify with and root for Steve Wiebe...it was not Wiebe who made this film what it is...Billy Mitchell made this film what it is. I know it'd be weird to give an Oscar to a documentary film actor due to the fact that people don't act in documentaries but the King of Kong to me has so many Spinal Tap elements to it that it's not exactly a straight up documentary....it's a movie. That being said, I was somewhat astonished that Billy Mitchell did not get nominated for any Oscars for his portrayal of "Billy Mitchell" in the King of Kong.

The second example mentioned, Ecstasy of Order: The Masters of Tetris, is a more straight doc than movie. I think they at some point fiddled with the idea of making Thor Aackerland a heel but probably scrapped the idea. Thor looks like he's a good candidate for heel throughout the film by constantly claiming to be able to get to the holy grail of level 30 in Tetris but never offers any proof to these claims. You think he's being worked as the "Billy Mitchell" of Tetris...but then they get into his backstory and you start to really like the guy...and then at the very end of the movie....guess what? I don't wanna spoil it but...ok I will...(SPOILER) at the end of the movie that fucking Thor gets to level 30 in Tetris and your face will be all like "No WAY, he actually can DO IT!!!!!? WOW!"  (/SPOLIER)

Masters of Tetris is still an interesting look at retro gaming and the whole scene and it is great that it gives good screen time to the two female masters of Tetris (one of which is a pretty cute lesbian). Maybe you were thinking that retro gaming is all ugly old male nerds but there's some chicks doin' this too.

Twin Galaxies vs. Speed Demon Archives

In the King of Kong film we are also introduced in to an institution which is dedicated to documenting feats of skill in video game history. What I can't figure out is whether the "Walter Day" character being presented here was actually himself (i.e. a real dude) or not. Was it a shtick? Was that pretentious demeanor all an act? I don't think his character was shticked-out at all to be perfectly honest. The pretentiousness and general oddness of this "video game referee" and self declared "authority" of video game records seems to be the real deal. I don't think it's an act.

To me the fact that the Mario 1 records are not even counted on Twin Galaxies because of "glitches exploited" by the gamers is so silly. The record on Twin Galaxies for Mario 1 is listed as being 5:08....they don't even accept the fact that now TWO human beings have cracked 5 in Mario. What kind of fucking bullshit is this? Twin Galaxies can go fuck itself.

I keep up to date with the masters of retro gaming and the video game heroes of the age with that great site Speed Demon Archives Dot Org.*

Twin Galaxies? I have no respect for your operation...not in the least.

 
* Note: All these years I thought this site was called Speed Demons Archive but it looks like there's no "N" and it's actually Speed Demos Archive which sounds suuuuuuuuuper lame. Whatever though, it's still better than Twin Galaxies.


So This Retro Gamin'...Is It?

Is retro gamin' a Skill? Look, kids these days don't know what we went through. These days the companies make the games at an enjoyable difficulty for all ages so they can get the widest audience range and sell the most units. Back in my day, gamin' was brutal on your eyes, mind, n' brain. Yo, if your kid could beat Mega Man 2 at 10 years old back in the day....you had to get on the phone with Mensa as soon as it occurred to let them know that society had a "prodigy" on its hands and hope to the heavens that the child didn't mature into an evil genius. If you had a kid who could get 500K points in Tetris you were obliged to fill out a government report indicating that you had a "biological weapon" in your premises because many world governments of the era classified a brain of that magnitude as a nuclear threat to civilization.

Fuck, man. Watchin' a dude like Gardikis or the newly crowned Mario King runnin' through a Mario 1 game and seeing all the roll-stoppin', the quick-housin', the back-tubin', the 21n frame masterin', the pirahna clearin', and the threadin' of the the needles. You can see that and pretend that what is happening isn't a skill? I don't think so, pal.

A basketball player who can hit big threes gets into a "zone," a baseball hitter who can in a split milli-second pick up a 96 mile an hour fastball and jack it down the left-field line is in a "zone," what about a Tetris Master who can achieve 290+ lines, a 999,999 MAXIMUM score, and get the level 29 variable to switch over to level 00...is he in the Zone?

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6mvDOKOIqY)

Oh yes, he's in the Zone. He truly is.

What is the Zone? Have you been there? Have you ever got so good at something that your brain became so efficient at it that you actually forget your even doing it while your doing it? That's the Zone. It's like...you just beat Mario 2 in like 10 minutes and you think to yourself afterwards...

"Wow, I just beat Mario 2 in the last 10 minutes but I wasn't even thinking about it. I was thinking about that one time my friend threw a full milk shake all over my other friend and I started to laugh and laugh...I wasn't even thinking about Mario 2 at all whilst I beat it in the last 10 minutes." 

-A theoretical quote from someone that was "in the Zone."

It seems as if your brain has found such an efficient way to accomplish a given task that it deems that the only thing that can get in the way at this point in achieving the task is over-thinking the situation, so naturally the brain distracts itself from thinking unnecessary thoughts and it accomplishes this feat by making itself think of things not related to the matter at hand whilst the matter at hand is efficiently taking care of on auto-pilot. Wow.

Take Exhibit A over here...

Climbing ladders...or something much much more?

Luigi has climbed up a ladder (narrowly avoiding being shot) and now has come to TWO ladders...one on the left and one on the right. Now...whether you chose left or right HAS NO BEARING on the outcome of the situation. Yet, your brain will take a few miliseconds/frames to ponder whether to choose left or right. Why would the brain waste valuable frames deciding on an action on a situation in which both paths lead to the same outcome? Because our brains are stupid, that's why. Yet when you're in The Zone, the brain doesn't deal with that shit...it just bounces up a ladder (ANY LADDER) and gets where it's gotta go.

Damn, when we're not in The Zone...it's almost like we're these victims of some sort of a collision on the open seas as our brains struggle to make routine decisions which ultimately have ZERO bearing on the future. Call it obsessive compulsive disorder, call it fear of choice, call it what you want. It reminds me of that dog who found these two bones this one time in Ancient Rome and he picked at one and then he licked the other...and then he literally went in circles until he dropped dead.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVGINIsLnqU)

Oh man, Video games are hard work sometimes.

People say video games aren't for real because they are just "games" and games aren't for real. Games can for real too though...like basketball, soccer, baseball...people know those games are for real. If you told a retro master gamer that he or she is just playing a "game," I'd bet they'd disagree with you. When your that good at something it's no longer a game anymore for you to enjoy leisurely. Let legendary relief-pitcher/philosopher John Wetteland expalin this phenomenon,
  

"[Baseball is not a game] for me. It’s something I need to execute. There’s a whole different perspective I have and that’s why maybe I can’t enjoy it the same way. I only watch baseball to learn from it, not to enjoy it."

-John Wetteland

Mario Runners, Tetris Masters, Donkey Kong Experts, Pac Man Wizards, Asteroid Champions...these people don't play these "games" to enjoy them...they play them to find the most effective way to function. They execute functions in a divine flow is what they do, they do not "play" them at all. They find the most efficient series of functions to execute in order to create a Flying Divinity of Mental Togetherness which becomes an awe inspiring event for spectators to see. You better believe it.

Now let me ask you this, does it got The Drama? Yeah, it does.

Riddle me this, if King of Kong was about just Steve Wiebe beating Donkey Kong and getting the highest score ever would you have watched it to the end? I wouldn't have. I watched that movie because of Billy Mitchell. Why did I watch it because of Billy Mitchell? Because he's Billy Mitchell.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok6kiLK0Idc)

 "...Because I'm Billy Mitchell." -Billy Mitchell

All that's left is The Stakes. Some compete for the money, some for the fame, some for the thrill...but some just compete to be the best....the best that there never even was. There can only be one "The Best" and you're either it or your not. You're either Thor Aackerlund or you're not. What are the stakes in retro-gaming? What do you think?

It's about being the fucking greatest.


Conclusion

We know retro-gamin' has the skillz, the drama, and the stakes. All its missing is a venue and some media attention. It needs a place to compete, some camera people, some key grips, some dolly grips, and a handful of announcers and play-by-play people. That's it.

Years ago, a man named Chairman Kaga went through gallons of blood, sweat and tears to build his one-of-a-kind Kitchen Stadium to give a venue for his Iron Chefs to compete against all challengers this World had to offer.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TdA_yP8sV8)

Retro Gamers of all corners of this World of Worlds are asking themselves at this very moment...where's our Chairman Kaga? Where's our Video Game Stadium? When will I get to show the world my ability? When is it my turn to shine on the global stage?

When will the 7 Iron Gamers assemble on Television in the famed Retro Gamin' Stadium and do battle? That's the question on everyone's mind.

Over Descriptivism: Will it Lead to the Death of Fiction?

I read fiction rarely if ever. I mostly read words for the purpose of acquiring/disseminating datum, to learn about someone's life (auto-biographies) or comedic materials that are wicked funny. I can't wrap my head around fiction these days. Fiction, by the way, just means material that is make-believe for the intent purpose of entertaining readers (like adventure novels, mystery novels, romance novels, novels, les romans, etc.).

Is it just me? Am I weird? Probably, yeah.

Maybe I dislike fiction because I suck at it and can't write that way, it could be that. The only attempt I have ever made at fiction writing was an amateur computer game I made called "The Legend of Liberace 3," which even though I made it (with map editing help from my friend who edited my template maps into more better looking maps), I will admit it is possibly the shittiest thing ever. I dunno, me sucking at writing fiction can't be the reason I don't like readin' the stuff though. 

Maybe I gotta take a step back and figure out why I can't get down with fiction, I really should. I mean I used to read that shit back in the day. When I was a kid I used to read those Sesame Street books like where Grover is the monster at the end of the book, or where Ernie and Bert meet at the wrong lamp post at the park, and this and that. Those books used to rule but even they weren't really fiction, they were stories to teach kids lessons about life.

I used to read fiction books for school if they assigned us some or during "15 minute free readin' period" but that wasn't by choice. Like I read that Rebecca for school and wrote my mandatory 500 word essays on what a horrible woman Mrs. Danvers was but that wasn't by choice.

I've read really old fictional stories, like Gilgamesh or Outlaws of the Marsh,...but I'd classify that as historic research as much I'd classify it as fiction. It's so old that they really are a window into a past society's views and writing techniques.

I don't think I've really ever read pure fiction by choice, though I think I know what turns me off and it is the use of Over Descriptivism which is plaguing ALL writers in ALL languages on earth at this current moment.

Over Descriptivism

This is not in reference to "linguistic descriptivism" or "philosophic descriptivism" in any way, I'm really just talking about over description but am calling it by the term "Over Descriptivism" because it sounds chicer and cuter.

Describing things is the essence of writing...yet, at what frequency are writers (in this case ALL writers of fiction) over describing things? It seems like all the time and always.

Some writers take 2 pages just to introduce a character to you. How they look, how they look at a distance, how they smell, how they are currently feeling, how they know other characters in the book, how tall they are, how fat they are, how ugly/not-ugly they are, if they have tattoos...blah, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc,.

You build characters in fiction by making them do cool/respectful things (for good guys) and making them do horrible/bad/annoying things if they are villains. Let the imagination of the reader decide what they look like. If you leave your lead character ambiguous to the reader they can more easily give the characters the features (physical, etc.) they want him/her to have.

There's a very very fine line separating being descriptive of a scene or a character and just jotting down autistic nonsense. I almost couldn't read Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" (which is a highly acclaimed book) to the end because I didn't care what the fucking gas station you stopped at looked like, or what the truck you hitched a ride on looked like, or what Neil whats-his-name's hair smelled like, or how you felt when you walked into someone's house. blah blah blah, blah...

Sarcastically Emulating Standard Fiction Writing whilst Employing the Over-Use "Technique" of Describing Shit

In the following grouping of words and sentences, I will attempt to write a few paragraphs of standard fiction. Our lead character will walk into a room and scratch his head, then he will scratch his nutsack. Ahem...

Reggie was standing in the archway which led to the room he wished to walk into. He was a quaint man of regular to minute stature, many of his colleagues respected him yet he suspected they only respected him due to this modest stature he projected unto the world. He knew if he walked into this room he would have to do it in a manner which made the people already in that room feel that the man walking into the room was a man of average to great importance. He began to feel nervous, "what if they think I walk into rooms funny?" he thought to himself. The last thing Reggie wanted was to walk into the room in a manner which attracted ridicule. 

The archway over the doorway was quite beautiful, in more ways than one. The wooden curved facade was oaken yet had a golden plating which made the room he was standing before appear daunting to the person attempting to enter it. Doorways have a way of sneaking up on you both physically and mentally Reggie thought to himself. Life is full of so many archways leading to unknown rooms...will you enter a nice room full of nice experiences, or a horrible room full of horrid experiences? Reggie was making himself more nervous as each minute passed, he began to break out in a cold sweat, he grabbed his hair with his right hand and wiped up some of the sweat from his hair and his temple. In the process of wiping his sweat Reggie disheveled his hair which made him even more nervous. He wondered if the people in the room he was about to enter had seen him wipe his sweat and mess up his hair. 

"Oh no," thought Reggie, "did they see me? I better just walk in right now before they think I'm a big weirdo!"

Reggie, like ripping off a band-aid, walked briskly into the room before him. In the case that anyone saw him mess up his hair he pretended that his head was itchy and coolly and collectedly scratched the right side of his head. Reggie dislodged some white flakey dandruff from his scalp and it cascaded onto his shoulder and lapel. The feigned itchiness was now more real than ever and like a contagious disease his itchiness spread to his legs and crotch.

"My balls," Reggie pondered inwardly..."My balls are itchy now..."

Reggie had no choice now but to scratch his balls....

TO BE CONTINUED

Okie dokie, a couple of paragraphs describing a man walking into a room and scratchin' his nuts. Wasn't that interesting? No it wasn't, it was boring, stupid and utterly pointless.


Over Descriptivism is Spreading like a Virus

Forget just in fiction novels, OD is spreading like a freakin' swine flu to every form of writing. I read an article today on the net which was at the point of being unbearably OD. It was an article about my boy Nathan Fielder (the dude behind funny jokes like "Dumb Starbucks" and other funny ass shit), and the author claims to have interviewed him but only has about eight or nine quotes of what Nathan says to him...the rest of the article is asinine autistic description of what was around him as he interviewed him.

"Article" in question: (http://grantland.com/features/nathan-fielder-nathan-for-you-comedy-central-season-2)

This is over description to the point of it being un-fucking-readable. I know the internet is full of hyperbole and calling shit the worst thing ever is overdone...but this is the WORST article I've ever read in my whole entire life. The "journalist" probably talked to his guest for 8 seconds but managed to produce a full length short story of asperger-infested fluff.

Another example of OD seeping its way into other media is from that dumb yet insanely popular podcast This American Life  by ass pie icon extraordinaire Ira Glass. This is the worst interviewer I've ever heard EVER. I listened to him interviewing people a long time ago and Glass in post tends to edit over the audio with his own opinions over-layered over the interview. So, in the final product that hits airwaves, the guest is talking about his/her experiences...and then the sound fades out and you can barely hear him/her talk...and Glass starts saying shit like "When he/she started talking about that...I felt like I was beginning to understand how he/she felt." Okay good for fucking you for thinking that, thanks for fading out the volume in post and inserting your BORING autistic opinions over your guest while they talk...you fantastic bozo.


Tools are better than Over Describing Fluff

I think it was Vladimir Nabakov or Alexander Pushkin (or one of the Russian guys) who said that you shouldn't introduce a piece of information to the reader if that piece of information is not pertinent to the story and/or is a writing tool to set-up some sort of event in the story. I tend to agree with this idea...if you're gonna take ten pages to describe what a wolf or a doorknob looks like...that fucking thing better have an important role to play in your god damn story. The interesting thing is that any item/person/thing at all can become an important story tool.

A Maltese MacGuffin

Alfred Hitchcock referred to these story tools as "MacGuffins," and they are just placemarker objects which drive the story. Anything can be a MacGuffin and they don't need endless lines of description AT ALL.

Examples of MacGuffins many are familiar with are The Maltese Falcon, which is just some silly object that many parties seem infatuated with and desperately want (including Peter "Ren Hoëk" Lorre). Another good one which worked well was Tarantino's "shiny briefcase" MacGuffin from Pulp Fiction. How much did Tarantino describe the briefcase? Not much, we never even knew what was in it. Why didn't he need to describe the briefcase (the major plot point of the story)? Because he's not a moron, that's why.

MacGuffins can be used for minor plot points too not just major ones. You can use a MacGuffin as a "leitmotif" too. Leitmotifs are more common in music but they are applicable to writing tools just as much. A good leitmotif in writing will sort of string-together your shit and make it look sharp, chic, and fucking organized.

A writer who employs leitmotifs very well is that Shigesato Itoi, the writer of literature pieces such as Mother 2 and Mother 3. His works are rife and abundant with leitmotif macguffins that really give the story a real nice flow to it. An example of one of his leitmotif macguffins is the doorknob from Mother 3.

Writing a musical symphony is more scientific than most people think, and writing a book is way more scientific than people think. There's tools you need to employ to do this successfully and the way you string your writing tool events together is kind of like laying foundations and bricks down to build a house or a shack or something.

Conclusion

Fiction is kind of dumb...and it's not because it's a bad art form but because the current popular styles of articulating this art form are annoying and dumb.

Bottom line is...if you take 400 words to describe something then that something and the features you give that something better be important and crucial to the final product.

Fuck Star Wars, man.

I think something is seriously wrong with Star Wars, dude.

The original 1970s Star Wars were really cool. It had a very simple story of romantic good versus evil. The studio de-retarded a lot of Lucas's bullcrap ideas (for instance Han Solo was a FROG in Lucas's original version) and it was loved by millions.

Star Warz!!!!

The second generation trilogy was awful. From pointless political plots no one cared about to an overtly racistly depicted character that no one liked (jar-jar). The second trilogy was hated by millions and for good reasons...it really sucked and was terrible.

Now they are going back to the basic formula and trying to make Star Wars cool and not retarded again. Lucas is 100% out of the equation and they have a blank non-retarded sheet of paper to work with.

It looks like it's gonna suck though. Apparently Harrison Ford broke his legs and his screen time is being replaced by Tom Cruise. That is the worst entertainment news in decades, hands down. Tom Cruise? He's like the worst person ever.

I know it's rude to say, "I told you so" but awhile ago I warned Disney about making Harrison Ford do unnecessary stunts in the new Star Warses. 

-Me, April 15 of 2013

Man, it looks like the new ones might even be WORSE than the garbage Phantom Menaces sequels they made.

The plot is gonna be so convoluted and stupid, I bet. There's gonna be so many political factions to mix everyone up. The old actors are gonna be all old. Tom Cruise is gonna be eating bugs or scientologing around like an idiot, or shoving twigs n' needles in his winky-hole or whatever the fuck that retard does.

Fuck man, I wish I could write the new Star Warz movie. That would be coooool. I'd make it rule. I'd give the old actors dignified non-action roles that make them look respectable and cool. My version would work, man, it really would.

Hypothetical Version of the New Star Wars that WOULDN'T BE DUMB

Okay so, last time we left our heroes from the seventies Star Wars...they had killed James Earl Jones and the Emperor guy and were getting drunk, looking at ghosts, and being very happy. So for the reboot they have to de-happy the "happily ever after ending" to continue the adventure.

De-Happyfying Event: After overthrowing the evil Empire and attempting to govern a new era of prosperity....sadly, a type of "meet the new boss - same as the old boss" situation starts to form. The new government becomes as corrupt and power-hungry as the old government. Carrie Fischer and Mark Hamil have gotten so used to being regarded as heroes that they can't even see the corrupt ways of the new regime. They felt that once the Empire was defeated that all would be rosy and they mainly now just spend their days drinking tea and being proud of themselves.

Sitting on your laurels sucks and is vain.

Where's Harrison Ford during all this? After knocking up Leia with like 1 or 2 kids he gets bored of married life and says..."Okay fuck this shit...I'm going on some adventure...BYE" and he ditches his family and calls Chewbacca on the phone and is all like "Yo Chewie, let's dust off the Falcon and go smuggle some space drugs into the stripper planet of the Z-Sector-Star-Way-Galaxy and drink space-beer and get fucked up" and Chewey is all down for it and ditches his own wookie family to go back on more space adventures.

Great Schism 1: The first main conflict should involve Billy Dee Williams. He should be at his cloud planet chilling when someone tells him that a tax collector from the New Liberation Regime has increased his space-energy tax rate by 35% and he owes the new government like a shit ton of space-bucks.

Billy Dee Williams then gets all pissed and is like..."Oh ya? Haha. Meet the new boss!? Same as the old boss! Fuck the New Liberation Regime! I'm not giving them shit!"

The silver-tongued poisonous and slanderous tax collectin' official returns and informs Leia and all the other bigwigs in the new government that Billy Dee has turned traitor. They believe this horrible cretin's outright lies and Leia declares war on the Cloud Planet and Billy Dee.

Mark Hammill is now like a Yoda type and he dispatches his rookie Jedis to fuck with Billy Dee's planet but he is always shown to be wary of this and constantly wonders why Bill Dee Williams turned traitor (yet Hamill never comes to the realization that the new Regime they ushered in has turned evil and Billy Dee is actually the good guy in this movie at this juncture...Why can't he come to this obvious realization? Because Hamill has lived too many years resting on his laurels).

Great Schism 2: Harrison Ford and his fleet/armada of space smuggling crafts join the war...but on Billy Dee's side! Mark Hamill and Carrie Fischer are all like...."what the fuck? we're your wife and your friend, bro! Why are you fighting against us!? What's your problem? Are you some kind of an asshole or what?"

Friend Versus Friend breaks out all kinds...as Hamill and Ford duel. Hamill does a light saber dance which is exaggerated and silly and Indiana I mean Harrison Ford just shoots him with a lazor and Mark Hamill is all like "Whoa Bro! I was in the middle of doing my ritual jedi-warrior pre-friend-versus-friend light saber tribal war dance! It's indeed on now!!" and he takes a wild light saber slash at Harrison Ford but Billy Dee Williams jumps in front of Harrison and takes the death blow.

Whoa.

Yeah, Billy Dee Williams is DEAD...what the fuck!? At that moment both Hamill and Ford cry real manly tears and hug. Ford is like..."Bro, can't you see what the New Regime has become? It's so fucked up and evil....are you blind or what?" and Hamil is all like...."I have to see for myself..."

Act 3: Mark Hamill and Carrie Fischer disguise themselves in tattered robes and go to an impoverished planet and live first hand the conditions the common space dweller lives under. They realize that the world still sucks and that they have to Re-Revolt and Re-Re-Throw out the government who has now become as bad as the old Darth Vader one.

Hamill agrees to join Ford and lend the Jedi's army of hundreds of Jedis to Ford's gang of space smugglers to overthrow the government...but Carries Fischer won't work with Ford because she's so mad he ditched her and the kids to go on adventures.

Reconciliation in Act 4: Harrison Ford TOTALLY saves Carrie Fischer and his kids lifes in the ultimate display of self sacrifice that even makes Billy Dee's self sacrifice pale in comparison...like he takes a huge freeze ray or a big fire cannon or some space bullshit that was aimed at them. Carrie forgives Harrison and totally starts making out with him...but then he dies in her arms.

All the audience gets really sad now...in the theater women AND even men will be crying.

Conclusion: Hamill and Fischer make it to the planet where old cool Jedis live in exile and they get them on their side. This includes Yoda's daughter (A FEMALE MUPPET VERSION OF YODA! COOL!), Mace Window's long lost son (who is also played by Samuel L. Jackson), and a cool looking wookie with an eye-patch and a meanstreak. Oh and C3P0 and R2D2 are on this planet as well...just retired and chilling and doing a cameo, you know?

Hamill, Fischer, Mace's son, Yoda's Daughter (who fights with light saber sais), and the eye-patch wookie (who fights with light-saber nunchucks!) kill all the bad guys and then return home to celebrate and drink...

....and they look at ghosts...but this time, you know who's ghosts are there at the end celebration to nod approvingly at them? Harrison Ford's and Billy Dee Williams's ghosts.

Detente: To ensure the government is better this time....Yoda's daughter sets up a cosmic constitution which guarantees civil rights for all people, aliens, wookies, and jawas, and gay aliens, and religious aliens, and atheists aliens, and gay people, and jews, and handicapped aliens, and tranvestite wookies, robots, and gay robots, etc, etc, etc.

THE END


Conclusion

The new Star Wars seems pretty cool. I like the part where Billy Dee Williams takes a light saber for Han Solo and I like the part where the eye-patch mean-streak wookie nunhucks an entire battalion.

It needs some hot chicks too though because Carrie Fischer is old now. Maybe they can do a slave scene with like Nathalie Portman where like she plays the daughter of the lady she played in the crappy Star Wars movies and some big fat smelly alien has Nathalie Portman like in chains and a collar and is slobbering on her and her bikini. That'd work.

This movie is going to be good.

Rating the Pants(s)

I tell you, one thing we all have in common is pants. Pantses. Pantseses. Everybody wears pants (and if you don't you'll get arrested).

Terminology

The term pants isn't an all encompassing globally ubiquitous term. What someone calls a "pants" isn't necessarily a "pants" to someone else.

For instance,

In North America, "Pants" refers to the visible article of clothing on your legs. This can come in the form of jeans, dress pants, shorts, khakis, and all sorts of other styles of leg-clothes.

Yet, In The United Kingdom..."Pants" refers to what North Americans would know as "underwear." They call "Pants" as we know them "Trousers" and the term "Pants" is used to refer to the non-visible under article of leg-clothes (i.e. boxers, thongs, granny-panties, briefs, tightie-fuckin'-whities, etc.).

In this assessment of pants we will be using the term which regards pants as being the VISIBLE leg-clothes article. Though for good measure a portion of the assessment will cover underwears just to be sure this assessment is as detailed as humanly possible.

Okay, On to the Pants

1. Shorts

Shorts refers to a variety of leg-clothes which come to slightly over to slightly under the knees of your legs. The effectiveness  of shorts is wholly dependent on climate and seasonal variations.

If you live in a hot climate then you can blast shorts all year round and not even give a care about your legs getting cold. That's really good, but if you live in a cold climate then chances are you'll only be rocking your shorts from May to August (give or take depending on your region and what type of summer you are having).

Shorts give easy access for air currents (i.e. the coldest of summer breezes) to get to your crotch region. Your sweaty balls/wiener or your sweaty gina might really appreciate a cool summer breeze now and then...and let me tell you...your crotch will not get any cool summer or even spring breezes if you are not wearing a short style of pants. There's no way around it, you should try to wear shorts in summer time.

I never wear shorts to bars though, not even on the hottest night of the year, no way. You look stupid when you wear shorts into bars...unless it's at like a resort town or something of that nature where people are expected to be in shorts like in Mexico or somewhere like that.

Overall, I have a positive view of shorts, I really do. It's just that I live in a wintery climate and the window of opportunity to wear these bad-boys is limited at best.

Final Tally: B+


2. Underwears

I have a love-hate relationship with underwears. They really are a double-edged sword, I find. Normally underwears do the job of not being one-layer of clothing away from other people's dicks and pussy-ginas...but there are two polarized positive and negative scenarios associated with underwears that can make or break your opinion on them.

Fred, one of Underwears many happy users

Best Case Scenario) Say for example you're Fred The Elephant Boy and you're taking a bus down to make a paid appearance and you happen to accidentally shit yourself on the bus ride. A quick thinker might get to the nearest bathroom, undress, throw the shitty underwear into the trash receptacle, go commando the rest of the day...and no one would ever even be the wiser. No one would smell shit on you or anything. In this case underwears are your main and best friend...and I'm sure guys like Fred the Elephant Boy and other people who are prone to "accidents" must love underwears to the fullest.

Worst Case Scenario) The worstest case scenario regarding underwears is the "hot-day wedgie" case-scenario. Wedgies are fucking annoying to begin with but on a humid day...forget about it. The ride-up and entanglement of the underwears with your genitals and/or bum-crack will be a whole other ballgame on a hot-ass day. The humidity will cause excess sweat in the region and the ride-up entanglement of the wedgie will cause irritation in the form of chafing. People call this sweaty wedgie "butt-rot" or "crotch rot"...either way it's the fucking worst and I hate it. If you work labor intensive jobs or are an avid jogger or professional athlete and have experienced numerous cases of this...then your opinion of underwears may be biased to the max. You might be thinking to yourself at times things like, "underwears? Fuck underwears...I hate them" and no one would blame you for feeling that way about underwears.

Final Tally: C+ (not too shabby there underwears)


3. Dress Pants

This refers to business-suit pants and are often cited as "funeral pants." I'm not a fan, it's flimsy material and you can't run around in them. You know what shoes you have to wear with dress pants? Yes, you know it...dress shoes. The most uncomfortable shoes on earth.

I will admit some men can pull off a look using dress pants that does come off as being pretty fucking cool. Like for example, 4/6 of the James Bonds(s) looked pretty well in their tuxedo dress pants, 66.6% of Bonds is a pretty good stat...that's a straight-up pro for dress pants, no doubt. Another example is that kick-guy, that french savate fucker on One Piece...he always dresses in nice dress pants and he tends to look pretty cool when he kicks the shit out of bad guys on that show.

All in all, despite that 4/6 James Bonds and 1/1 Sanji look cool in dress pants...I still feel that dress pants can go fuck themselves. Not my kind of pants to be honest.

Final Tally: D+


4. Jeans

Jeans are sturdy old friends, that's a fact jack. You can have a pair a jeans for like 5 years and rough the hell out of them doing all kinds of rugged activities and those jeans will still be kicking.


I have a life cycle for jeans, it goes: 1. Dress Jeans, 2. Work Jeans, 3. Heavy/Dirty Work Jeans, 4. Garbage Rag n' Bone Jeans.

Basically, I use a new pair of jeans for going to bars then when they start ripping I demote that pair to being jeans I work in. Once they start ripping and tearing even further I further demote those jeans to being "Heavy/Dirty" work pants that I do like filthy ass shit in like painting and staining furniture with Danish Oils, Lemon Oils, and shit. The final stage (5) is the death stage where they are cut up into rags and used to wipe surfaces or other areas. You know?

If I buy a new pair once the dress jeans get demoted to level 2 "Work Jeans" then I always have a steady flow of jeans in the jeans-cycle and don't have to worry about not having jeans for any and all occasions.

That's how I go about wearing this version of pants, basically.

Final Tally: A- (that's what I'm talkin' 'bout)


5. Skirts

Skirtz

Since skirt-related leg-clothes lie in the domain of females and trannies...I have no experience pool to work with or judge from on the wearing of said leg-clothes. Yet, I still have an opinion on skirts though.

Why do men dig women who wear skirts? Because mentally they know they are at all times just one pull-up and one pull-aside from accessing the skirt-wearer's vaginer-hole. A simple two-step procedure will give a male or a lesbian access to a skirt-wearing female's genitals.

Other leg-clothes don't always operate like that, for instance jeans on a chick is still hot but they tend to wear jeans that are SO TIGHT that unzipping them and wiggling them off is a ten-step process which requires patience...and patience is something many boners don't have.

Skirts? They make women look way hot so they are A-O-Kay. I have a feeling that they are just for show though like dress pants and don't have any real practical value in say keeping your legs warm or protecting your legs from cuts and bruises.

Final Tally: B


6. Pajama Pants

There are two main areas of "Pajama" style pants which are "Kid's Pajamas" and "Big Boy/Big Girl Pajamas."

Now these be some PJs

Pajamas for adults are more for comfort and less gimmicky than children's Pee-Jays, this includes pants like joggin' pants, yoga pants, those checkered wool pants that seem popular these days, and other comfortable pants you sleep in.*

Kids Pee-Jays are more gimmicky and cutey-wutey than adult pajama pants. Like, when I was a kid I had these Major League Baseball licensed pjs which had all the logos of each team strewn about the garment mosaically which I found were really really cool.

You can make small humans (children though not midgets) look really really super cute n' adorable with the right PeeJay pants.

Also, adult comfort sleeping pants are pretty good too. Pajama pants are decent leg-clothes all around, if I do say so myself.

*Important Note: This DOES NOT include "Long Johns" which are an "underwear" variety of pants and by no means a pajama version of pants. Got it?  


Final Tally: B+


Conclusion

Seems like Shorts, Jeans, Skirts, and Pajama Pants got some decent to high ratings. Congratulations to these pants.

The double-edged sword known as underwear gets the job done too.

As for dress pants? Unless you can look like Bond or Sanji by using them then good for you dude... but otherwise? No way, Jose.

Thank you.

One Less Comedian's Comedian on Earth....

Everyone has interests and passions in this life we are all simultaneously living over here. My interests pretty much go in this order, I'd say:

1. Eating Food / Drinking Liquids
2. Comedy
3. Hot Womens
4. Baseball
5. Design Science Optimal Global Revolution Matters

I take laughing (i.e. the function of being made to myself and also the making of other people to execute this function) pretty seriously. I do tend to believe that Comedy is an Art and a Science. It's not just fun n' games...it's a craft, it's a trade, it's an art...it really is an art...it's 'snart.

What is a Comedian's Comedian? It is the upper-most human echelon of comedic behavior. It's the creme de la creme. It's excelling at the art of bein' funny. It's actually hard to explain what this term means.

First off, you must reach a level of ZERO PRETENSION, where you are constantly presenting yourself as a "sad-sack" or a "boob" or a "fool" or a "bozo" at all times. It's easier to laugh at people who don't take themselves seriously. You have to achieve this state in order to even think about being a Comedian's Comedian. You must be able to handle being the "butt" of the joke.

Devito in a lighter moment

I find it hard to laugh at people who just make fun of other people instead of themselves, or people who care too much about their physical appearance. Looking well is NEVER conducive to comedy, UGLY is always better. For example, a guy like a James Franco can not and will not ever be funnier than a Danny Devito...it is simply an impossibility. It's not possible for a pretty boy faggo to be funnier than a 4 foot 11, bald, fat man.

Knowing the history of comedy is another preset of being a Comedian's Comedian. You have to know where the art form originated from in order to truly know what you are doing. You have to know about Vaudeville, you have to know who the Three Stooges were (that's a big-time pre-requisite), you gotta know the old shit. You have to be able to tell a standard paced joke...Setup, Punch, Topper, Double-Whammy. You need to be able to tell an enjoyable "Shaggy Dog Story" style joke which is VERY hard but 100% possible.

Here for reference is Comedian's Comedian Norm MacDonald issuing a "moth joke" shaggy-dog style story that seems to always work: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8c4_1306857615

Or here he is doing a shaggy-dog joke in the form of a uhhhh...um..an "Andy Richter Swedish/German Prospector Joke" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaduY_sKce4&t=16m10s

Guys like my boy Norm can handle a shaggy dog no problem. Guys like Gilbert Gottfried, Jackie Martling or Legends like Rodney Dangerfield...those fucking guys can handle it too. Those guys are CCs for sure.

Rest in the Sweetest of Peace Mr. Richard Richard

Rik Mayall died today, and in my mind this was one of the funniest comedians I ever observed. Whether in a four-man unit like in the Young Ones or in a dual 2-man back-to-back praying-mantis style comedy troupe like on Bottom...this guy had it going on.

The combination of Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson is one of the best 1-2 punches in comedy history (some argue).

Rik's portrayal of "Richard Richard" on Bottom is one of the funniest fucking things I ever saw. No joke. He was the ultimate sad sack...the ultimate fucking loser. Richard was a 30+ year old virgin, unemployed, greasy moron with the smallest penis on earth. His only friend was a "friend by default" named Edward Hitler (no relation) who were only really friends because they couldn't possibly be welcomed or accepted by anyone else in the entire world. They pretty much hated each other but had to hang out by default and constantly beat each other up in the most elaborate of ways. These guys were the bum-iest, most obnoxious ne'er-do-well scumbags in the United Kingdom.

It's weird to see up tight British people acting like this...it actually makes it like double funny to see the "high class" British being as stupid as fuck. You can say like "shit" and words like that on the air too in that country even back in the 90s. Damn, Rik Mayall was a funny dude, seriously.

American audiences probably remember him when he played the imaginary friend of that naked chick who was in one of those high school movies from the 80s. It was called Drop Dead Fred and it was okay. His work on Young Ones and especially on Bottom is his main shit though.

Rest in Peace bro, you were a fucking funny dude, man.

Conclusion

I sincerely hope that Tracy Morgan, who was recently in an car accident, recovers from his critical injuries soon because I don't think Universe can handle the deaths of two Comedian's Comedians in such a short time span.

Farming. What's it all About?

Farming is so fun. I love gardening, I grow like beans, radii, tomatoes, carrots, and this and that in a small patch of field ever since I was a little kid.

Classic

I used to play that Harvest Moon on the Super Nintendo back in the day too. It was a fun and relaxing game that really had a "back to the land" sort of feel to it and all that. Like visiting an old era, you know? You grow crops, go fishin', pick weeds, give presents to chicks and get one to marry you and everything. A very simple game. Simple game. Very simple.

In real life, is farming supposed to be a simple and relaxing endeavor? Is it supposed to be as simple as it was in the "good old days"? Is it just a simple relaxing little hobby? I don't know about that.

Maybe you haven't noticed but there's 7+ billion dudes and chicks (oh and some transvestites) on this planet and they are all hungry to eat food. Can a simple agrarian "good old days" sort of "as god intended" method of farming succeed in feeding 7+ billion people? No, it can't.

Good Old Days?

Were these good old days of farming in real life as much fun as it was for me to simulate them in Super Nintendo's Harvest Moon? Was it really a close-knit community who shared and lived in a cute little utopia...or was it another case of Nostalgia for an Age which Never Existed?

How far back should we go to get to these Good Old Days anyway? Back to the age of hunting and gathering? No, that's way too far. Maybe back before the invention of the tractor? Back before pasteurization? Back before refrigeration? Back before ammonium nitrate fertilization? Before human altered plant strains? Back before what?

Teosinte to Corn

We can't go back before we bio-engineered hybrid plants because people have been selectively altering plants for thousands of years. No crop is what it looked like 10,000 years ago...humans re-plant the seeds from the best plants (over and over and over)...they never planted the seeds the next season around from the crappy plants. Over a long period of time we'd call this an evolutionary phenomenon and just because it took a long time doesn't mean these crops were not bio-engineered by humans. Corn for example used to look more like grass before the strain was bio-engineered by human selection over time.

Is it a good idea to go back before pasteurization? I know it's a big bad science word and all...but all it means is boiling the pathogens out of a substance and quickly cooling it. We've been boiling things for thousands of years too. The Chinese have been boiling wine almost forever. What's so bad about boiling the crap out of things? It saves countless lives. Milk's shelf-like becomes MONTHS instead of days after you pasteurize it.

Is it smart to go back to the days before refrigeration? People didn't always know that you had to refrigerate things or they'd spoil and go bad. In the case that you did not know...you have to keep milk in a refrigerator, or failing that, a cool wet sack. 110%.

Back before chemical fertilizers? Ammonium nitrate is a very scary couplet of words, I'll admit that. It's almost as scary a couplet of words as dihydrogen monoxide...and those words sound super scary as all heck. Although these words are just methods of writing out molecular structures, that's all. The scary sounding dihydrogen monoxide is just 2-Hydrogen and 1-oxygen. Two hydrogen and one oxygen make WATER. Yes, the stuff we drink, swim in, and shower in every darn day.

What is ammonium nitrate? It is 1 nitrogen nucleus winged by 4 closest packed hydrogen atoms plus 1 nitrogen nucleus winged by 4 closest packed oxygen atoms. It sounds like scary stuff but we've harnessed it for use in many effective ways. The most common effective way we utilize this combination of atoms is in fertilizers...they work well...they really multiply the output of crop yields big time.

Are molecules and serieses or combinations of said molecules really things to be frightened of?


Molecules n' Stuff

The whole milky way galaxy we live in is made up of mainly the following shits:

Known Atoms: 5%
(of which..Hydrogen: 93%, Helium: 6%, Oxygen, Carbon, Iron, etc.: 1%)

"Dark" / ?Unknown? Atoms: 95%
(Energies, atoms, matter, and other shit that we don't know what it is)*

That's it, that 5% of the elements in the universe is the stuff we have figured out how to work with. You can't be scared of these words, they are literally our tools as humans in this galaxy to work with. It's like a carpenter being scared of the word "hammer" or a fisherman being scared of the word "fishin' pole" or a farmer being scared of the word "watering can." These atomic particles are the tools we know how to manipulate and use...we cannot be afraid of these words.


*Note: Dark matter is a pretty wild topic and it's not a good idea to venture into whilst writin' 'bout farming. If it's hard to visualize what they mean by this term....try and think of like a glove that you turn inside out...a right hand glove will now fit on the left hand. Right? The glove is still the same glove but it no longer has the same use as it previously did. It is now the opposite of itself. We know we can turn atoms and energies inside-out (so to speak) but we don't know how to go about turning energy inside-out and identifying dark energy. I think.


"Organic" Movement

I can't even list how many people I know who are serious into this organic business. It's this back to simple times...back to the earth...back to the sun...back to who fucking knows where bull-datum what-have-you. It's an anti-science "back to the land" sort of mentality that seems odd.

A key term in the organic movement seems to be "As God Intended" and has a real amish sort of vibe to it. They think God (an imaginary bozo by the way) doesn't want humans to use all the advancements we have made into agriculture. This God doesn't care that humans have to figure out how to feed 7+ billion dudes n' chick n' travesties...he doesn't seem to care about that pressing issue at all. It seems this God character just doesn't want us to use pasteurization or ammoniun nitrate as fertilizer...and that's about all he/she/it is concerned with.

Look, if there is a "God" jabroni up there in fantasy land like you weasels wonderful people believe...why wouldn't he/she/it want us to feed all humans on earth? Why wouldn't he/she/it want us to harness the tools he/she/it gave us to do that?

This God gave us hydrogen (a full fuck ton of it), some helium, a bit of oxygen, and some other junk...and if you truly believe this "as God intended" business then wouldn't God WANT YOU to understand how to alter molecular structures? Would not He/She/It INTEND for you to harness the molecular tools he intrusted into this galaxy we're in?

Es Tu...God?

I say "he/she/it" to refer to this "God" concept people believe in because it's unclear what this concept is. For all I know it could very well be a Transvestite-God up there, wherever the fuck "up there" even is, considering there is no "up" and "down" on this rotating spherical orb flying through the milky way galaxy we're all currently on.

Maybe God is a Transvestite or maybe not, whatever, who cares what an imaginary thing is anyway?

God Shmod.


Is it Green or Is it Something Completely Different?

For the rest of the Organoes who don't believe in it for a God Shmod reason...what's their deal? They tend to think of the organic movement as a "green" thing...green meaning a movement which is saving the environment.

I'm not sure green is the right color to invoke to rightly represent organic farming. Does not treating a diseased cow with modern medicine invoke the color of green? No, diseased cows don't make me think of kermit-esque things. Does fertilizing with animal cackie make me think of the color green? No, it makes me think of the color shit.

Free ranging cows pooping all day long...the poop running into the local river....the river getting infested with E-Coli. Wow...that doesn't exactly sound too green to me. No way.

See: http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/ffarms.asp

You want to really have a nitrate overdose? Forget the chemical fertilizers you're so scared of...think about cow shit fermenting in the ground water. Does that sounds "green" to you? Because it sounds like SHIT to me. One hundred thousand square miles of caca ground water sounds like a whole lot of SHIT.

I know a lot of the holistic/naturopathic/homeopathic hippie community is into drinking their pee pee and all that...but not even hippies have a positive policy on shit. Nobody likes shit. Nobody. Gimme a break. It stinks and it smells.

Science/Efficiency Approach

What about trying to maximize land-use in the most organized of fashions to efficiently produce the largest possible amount of output?

If science produces a strain of rice that has 2x the nutrients and energy (kj) of a previous strain of rice...then why wouldn't we want to start planting that one? Why wouldn't we want a strain of rice germ that could give the eater of the rice 2x the nutrients and energy?

If science finds a safe way to stop bugs from eating and killing the crops...why not use it? I recently heard that guy Christopher Evan Welch (RIP) state that cicada bugs can wipe out an entire crop of sesame seeds in French Indochina. Why would we want to lose thousands of square miles of crops to fucking cicada bugs? Why would we want that to happen? Are you people really that scared of pesticide residue? Then wash your vegetables and fruits before consuming them. That's all it takes.

If science can extend the shelf life of dairy products by 12 times as long by pasteurizing and refrigerating them...then what's the big deal? Our milk lasts longer before turning sour and bad. What's wrong with that?

Is it just me? Does the science approach to farming and attempting to feed 7+ billion people sound like a better approach than the olden days approach?

Conclusion

Look, I love Harvest Moon...I found it to be a very relaxing video game. The simple life of gettin' up and watering plants, and combing my animals with a brush, and giving wild berries to girls in town is a very easy going alternate/fake life that is fun to mentally wash-over into from time to time.

That's just a video game though, in reality we cannot feed 7+ billion people on earth by leisurely farming like that kid in that game does. The organic movement thinks we can operate like this "olden days" style...but it is not possible. We cannot go at it all amish and expect results. It won't work, it 100% won't work. Global staple crop output must be maximized at all times to ensure people are being fed.

The "olden days" style wasn't like our depictions of it. You lived for about 31 years back then, more children died in childbirth than survived, the streets were covered in shit, a new war broke out every day, a new murderous disease strain broke out every week, and slavery accounted for almost all human labor. That's the reality of what it was like back then...it wasn't all bells and frills like on Fucking Road to Fucking Avonlea (sorry this is a very Canadian-specific reference). Um, it wasn't all hayfields and longstockings like it was on Little Fucking House on the Little Fucking Prairie!

There's things about the organic movement that seriously scare me. I notice the same people who believe in this......are the same people who believe in magic, and believe in Gods or Allahs or Wiccas or something, and believe in naturopathic medicine, the same people who don't vaccinate their children, and the same people who believe in chem trails and the whackiest of conspiracy theories...

...it's almost like a universal human rejection of science. The one thing that can help us and save us is the thing people hate the most. I think that's what I find odd about it.

Ratin' The Energies, Yeah!

Oh Hello, I didn't see you there. Come on in, this is my blog and I write stuff in it. Me? I'm about to rate the energies, would you like to join me? Ok great, let's have a good time!


Terms

We will be using the term TerraWatt-Hours quite a bit in this article so let's cover some ground on that term first.

Most of all of all of all y'all know what a Giga-Watt is because of that movie Back To The Future...

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjCRUvX2D0E)

 1.21.....GIGAWATTS!

A Giga-Watt be bigger than a Mega-Watt and a Tera...okay this is already needlessly confusing so I will just refer you to this article called "Orders of Magnitude (Power)"...

MegaWatt = 1 Million Watts

GigaWatt = 1 Billion Watts

TeraWatt = 1 Trillion Watts 

Our unit of measurement for the ranking will refer to all instances of power in TeraWatt-Hours which is the TeraWatt unit over a time variable. It is as simple as Watts x Hours.

For example if you were running a series of devices at 5 TeraWatts for 5 hours then 5x5 would mean you have used 25 TerraWatt Hours.

Warning

Look-it my fellow global g-units, I'm not a scientist or anything and the datum and opinions expressed in this blog article are my understandings of what seems to be the global energy scenario, maybe all the things I read are false...who knows. I, of fairly sound mind at this moment, believe the statistics and opinions expressed in the following text are true...yet, who knows if they are wicked correct or not. I'm just a dude, man...just like you and me. If something written here is of interest to you than by all means conduct your own research and formulate your own opinions on the subject matter.

For example a lot of data comes from the Enerdata website. If these numbers are off in any way than I really can't know any better...I can't go test this shit out myself. You know?

Pre-Rating - Global Stats

How many Tera-Watt hours per year does our human society use? I've looked around at many sources and studies...the following seems to be the case:

Total Yearly Global Energy Use: 20,000 TWh

Fossil Fuel Use: ~71%

Hydro Electric Use: ~16%

Nuclear Use: ~12%

Other Use (Wind, Geo-Thermal, Zombie-Power, Solar, etc.): ~1%

Thems is the stats, the whole stats, and nothing but the stats.

Pre-Amble

  

We shall be looking mainly at three things. Does this energy have the shutzpah to power a lot of stuff? Does this energy cause a lot of filthy pollution? Is this a renewable energy that will last humans a long time? These are undoubtedly the burning questions we will ask about these energies.

Ratings

1) Fossil Fuels

Renewable: Nope

Pollution: High!!! 

Potential: No Future

Energy by fossil fuels is the act of burning shit like coal, oil, or gas to create energy to power our devices and lights.

   

Almost the entire energy infrastructure of the globe is currently designed to use fossil fuels. Basically, Europe industrialized first and used fossil fuels to power their industries and vehicles, soon after the Americas followed suit and industrialized under the same template. 

After World War 1, other countries wanted to get in on the whole industrialization phenomenon and Russia basically asked the USA, "hey bro, how do we do this?" and the American engineers sent them a detailed report on how they did it and next thing you know Russia is using this fossil fuel template. 

Fast forward to only recently and hugely populated countries like China and India are on the phone with the same American engineers and ask, "hey bro...how do we get in on this shit?" and the engineers give China and India the template and lo and behold right now they are burning more fossil fuels than any other country in human history.

Very few countries didn't ask the Americans for their template when they wished to industrialize. Brazil may be the best example of one that did not, Norway is another a great example, the Quebec region of Canada, and the Las Vegas region of the United States didn't go the fossil fuel route either. Other than those regions...it seems all countries used the fossil fuel template to industrialize.

The fact that fossil fuels is the most used energy source is not because it is the most efficient, it is because everyone used the same template to industrialize (minus the exceptions noted above).

Brazil is the biggest exemption to this and if you're wondering why that is...it's actually an interesting history as to why. Brazil in the 1940s wished to industrialize, yet they didn't want to go the route the Americans chose and the Russians emulated...they wished to see if there were any alternatives. They called different engineers and were especially interested in the report of one man.

I seem to mention the following person a lot in this blog, I regard this man as sort of an inspirational figure I guess, the report Brazil's lead scientists were most interested in was the report of R. Buckminster Fuller who wrote them "A Compendium of Certain Engineering Principles Pertinent to Brazil's Control of Impending Acceleration in its Industrialization (1943)." Within the report (which has the coolest title for a report I've probably ever seen) Bucky told them Hydro Power and sugar fuel would be an interesting alternative to the fossil fuel template.

Brazil in the 1940s was under rule of dictator Getúlio Vargas who was one of those 1940s era proud dictator guys. Dictators think they're cool but in reality they just ruin everything for everyone else. Brazil didn't do much of anything under his rule let alone industrialize. It wasn't until the seventies that a new more intelligent and far less dictatorly Brazilian government re-perused Bucky's Compendium of Prognostications and phoned him up and flew him down to finalize implementation of this alternate industrialization template. People today wonder why Brazil is all Hydro power and is the world leader in vehicles powered by bio-fuels...but it's not lost to the history books as to why it is this way today. It was literally thanks to a Compendium of Prognostications made in 1943.

Fossil Fuels, as we all know, will eventually run out. For nature to replenish the petroleum deposits would mean it would need to re-pressurize, re-compress, and re-heat algae, vegetables and other junk until they re-fossilize and become the molecular form known as oil. Many are saying we've already hit the no-man's-land of "peak supply" but we're still just devising more obtrusive and destructive ways of reaching the hard-to-reach deposits which remain (bitumen/tar-sands for example).

It's also the most polluting form of energy. Coal burning gives off more air pollution than any other form by far, even mining the darned coal is a dangerous and dirty process that leaves workers with crippled lungs. Plus, coal gives off more radiation than nuclear plants during its burning process. 

The most damaging thing science seems to be saying about this process is the Co2 emissions are causing havoc to the global system. 

All in all, economically speaking all the infrastructure is set in place to use this form of energy but it is a limited supply and it is by far the most polluting form of energy.

Final Grade: D-

2) Nuclear Power

Renewable: No (but has a long long long life)

Pollution: Low (well, unless there's an accident then fuck)

Potential: Good

Nuclear power if done right can be great. Yet, like fossil fuels it is not renewable, because you have to mine Uranium in order to amass fissile material to use in the plant. Uranium mines are all over the world and surprisingly they are not as dangerous to the workers as coal mines but they're still not a fun place to work. Miners in Mali for Areva are paid about a buck an hour to haul uranium out of the mines.

The workaround to this limited supply of uranium seems to be to use thorium (u-233) fuel cells with the uranium which according to nuke experts will give nuke energy the life span to energize our human lives for thousand of years.

Sounds great, at least a whole lot better than using loser-ass fossil fuels that's for fucking sure. Is there any downside to nuke energy? Yeah, there is.

Chernobyl and Fukushima spring to everyone's minds when you talk about this nuclear power. Everything's chill down at the nuke plant and then all of a sudden outta nowhere it's all NEVER MIND NEAR FUTURE EXPLOSION FUCK YOU ALL RIGHT NOW !!! 

An accident in the plant will let loose radiation into an entire region. Now before people get too scared about nuke energy, you have to understand that nuclear radiation isn't as bad as many people think it is. A good chart to consult is the following,

Handy Nuke Chart: https://sslimgs.xkcd.com/blag/radiation.png

Radiation in the background is always there, all you naturalists who think you can get away from it are lying to yourselves. The fucking sun heats our planet through fucking radiation, if you don't like radiation then you'll have to hate the damn sun too.

That being said, being exposed to the "red" amounts in the above linked-to chart could be lethal, and being exposed for a long enough amount of time to "green" amounts will increase your risk of developing cancer.

The other fucked up thing about nuke energy is the by-product which has to buried. Honestly, nuke waste isn't as huge a deal as people make it out to be (although I probably wouldn't want that shit buried in my backyard)...nuke waste if handled properly won't harm nobody (probably). The bad thing is that this shit can be used to make nuclear bombs...therefore...if you want third world countries to industrialize and you give them reactors and uranium to complete that task...those countries will also develop a nuclear arsenal capable of blowing up the fucking planet. India and Pakistan threaten to blow each other up every damn day almost. Is it really a great idea to help say a third world country like Afghanistan industrialize by giving those psycho drug dealers reactors and nuclear weapons? You think the Taliban with nukes is going to be a good idea? No fucking way, dude.

The other shit thing about nuke energy is you need to cool the reactors so they don't overheat (and then overload and meltdown)...meaning they need to run in-house water cooling to preform the cooling process...and this process eats up almost 66% of the power a nuke plant creates! A fully functioning nuke plant loses 2/3 of the power it generates to cooling itself down...only 1/3 of the power generated by nuke plants is used by humans.

That thorium shit does indeed sound super-duper cool but they currently have no reactors (other than the outdated Candu) which has ever even run a test with thorium (u-233). Yes thorium would give nuke energy the ability to run for thousand of years but at this moment none of the world's current models are designed to use this material properly.

Final Grade: C-

3) Other

Renewable: Yeah

Pollution: Very Low

Potential: Good....but way down the line.

Here we be talking about Wind, Solar, Vermin Supreme's proposed zombie treadmill power plants, geo-thermal, and maybe even that kooky Tesla energy/death ray Magnifying Transmitter thingy-ma-bob that people love to talk about (maybe I'll just skip that one).

Does wind suck? Yes. Only hippies can dig that windmill shit...those towers generate shit and are a waste of space at their current tech level. Ask Germany, they'll tell you how much Wind sucks ass, balls, weiners, and vaginas.

Solar? Solar has good promise. I dig this shit. Right now the panels use too much land and generate very little but every single day science is designing panels that are more efficient and capture more and more energy. My computer that I'm using right now has been running the Harvard Clean Energy program on BOINC for a long time and apparently these calculations are saving scientists decades of time and really getting some good momentum going in the field. Haha, I like their screen saver too when my computer runs that program. It's cute. Solar's got some GREAT potential, g. Serious. Serious.

Vermin Supreme's Zombie Power? I dunno 'bout this one. It's tough to pull off. For starters, you'd have to really delve deep into the voudoun to figure out how to zombify a dude or chick's brain. I'm talking some real Baron Samedi shit to totally zombify someone's damned brain. Even if you could learn the voudoun skills necessary to zombify a mass of humans...you'd have to constantly feed them brains in order for them to have energy to run the treadmills that run the turbines of the Zombie Power Plant. All in all, the brains you'd have to harvest would make this energy template a difficult option. Thumbs down on this.

The rest? I dunno, who cares...Solar is the one with the most potential but as of right now these methods simply are not tangible options. In 100 years? Yes.

Final Score: C (mostly due to solar's potential in the future)

4) Hydro

 

Renewable: Yeah

Pollution: Pretty low, yo.

Potential: Great

We talked a bit in the fossil fuels section about Brazil, Nevada , Quebec, and Norway all going Hydro and loving it. It is a very low polluting and 100% renewable energy. You make a big dam, you let it loose and the water turns turbines and boom you got a bunch of Tera-Watts going. It's pretty cool.

People say there's no potential here, that we've capped out, and there's no more room for large scale dams. Reports I've seen from various sources, including the World Bank, suggest this is not the case at all.

Theoretically if all the possible dam locations were built all over world (which is expensive but 110% do-able and feasible) Hydro power could generate over 40,000 TerraWatt hours of yearly energy production. In the start of this article we clearly saw that the world currently needs 20,000 Terrawatt hours of energy per year. Meaning, if we maximized the hydro electric output globally we could generate TWICE the amount of power we currently use.

Africa, Asia, North America, South America, Australia, Europe, Russia, and everywhere else could dam their basins and produce double the energy output needed to run earth. Seriously. The World Bank knows this too. The reasons they state for not giving loans to countries to do this is apparently it is not "economically feasible" enough to do so.

Look, these TerraWatt energy numbers are REAL numbers that represent the energy we could produce, it's not fake fictitious gimmick numbers like currency. Currencies DON'T EXIST... they are just numbers for a fun game humans play. Apparently in today's mixed-up world, pretend numbers are more important than actual numbers. Dollars, Pounds, Rupees, Pesos, Bottle Caps, Feathers, and all these non-existent pretend numbers are taken more seriously than terrawatt-hours (which actually do fucking exist).

We all know we can literally have a low-polluting, renewable, global energy source which will output double the input we currently need/use. The reason we're not doing this is because it is not "economically feasible" for us to do it. Dang.

You know something, with the advancing technology into agriculture, energy, and medicine...we are actually dismantling supply-and-demand. We are ripping apart the mentality that there's a scarce number of resources on earth and only the privileged can have them. We will create more food than we can ever need forever, there will come a time when we will create more energy than we will ever need forever...and yet, we are still trying to apply these jabroni-ass economic principles such as "supply-and-demand" to resources that are becoming infinite. How can supply exist on an infinite renewable resource? It simply can not.

We are advancing toward a future where every single last human of the 7+ billion humans on earth can and will live like a "millionaire" with access to all the food, water, energy, and data being made available to all 7+ billion humans on earth.

Can a globally renewable and low polluting world grid of power be achieved using hydro dams?  From what I've read it seems to be the case, the problem will be implementing it.

Implementing hydro dams is not fun at all and it is costly...but the end result (if done right) will be amazing. Building the dams is very dangerous though. For example, before China built the 3-Gorges Dam they tried a previous attempt where they cut too many corners and flooded an entire region which resulted in many deaths.

Due to the land-use and possible mishaps whilst building the dams, Hydro cannot be given a perfect score...but it will be the best score of all the entries.

Final Grade: B+

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2cIGYpFA68)

Huh-huh-uh-huh-huh-huh.

Post Rating Assessment

Well, I think with all the data we have, Hydro seems to be a very good option at this juncture of humanistic time. I gave it the bestest rating...I like Hydro. I live in one of those areas mentioned that use it, I am currently running this here computer-box unit out of Quebec in jolly old Canada. So yeah, I dig it. Hydro power is cool.

Nuke would be decent for a coupla thousand years but with all the radiation and the possibility that kooky nations would build bombs and bomb the shit out of fucking people...I don't like it as much.

Oil? Fuck oil.

Coal? No way, Jose. Yeah right.

Solar got the jack to be a highly touted rookie prospect, no doubt. I hope we can further improve the efficiency of those super-slick lookin' mirror panels. They look friggin' cool too those mirrors.

Anyways...later, eh.