James Cameron's Avatarrrrr

The American movie has come a long way since the days when the Klan were the only people bankrolling a studio. Nowadays we have animated pandas, Mel Gibson and annual Academy slapfights over which movie is most pretentious enough to deserve Best Picture.

Into this morass steps James Cameron, last seen mugging for the camera in 1998 (or 1997?) at the Oscars. The former king of the world turned hermit, going underwater for some documentary about (what else) the Titanic, and then sitting in his lab, concocting what he does or does not consider his magnum opus: Avatar.

This movie has been hyped enough that I don't really need to go on any further. It recently limped onto the screen all over the place, except in Australia (they get everything late except for Peter Jackson films and dingo derby video games), to mostly wild reviews. But so far the box office has not been earth-shattering.

As you may know, I don't play the box office game, so I could care less if it makes money or not... unless it is a truly offensive film. Yes, if a film is bad, then it really deserves to lose money as a sort of stick upside the head of Hollywood's collective Jewdom to stop doing that. That's a naughty Hollywood. Bad! You left this Transformers all over the rug!!

So let's get on with it. Is Avatar a goodfilm or badfilm?

3D or not 3D? Virtually every reviewer agreed that the film pushed the limits of gra-- erm, computer animation to new heights. You see that Bryan Fury fellow on the right? No, you twat, your RIGHT. THE OTHER RIGHT. Yes, that's an actual actor, not a computer-generated character. What's the deal? If you watch Avatar, you'll find it difficult to really tell the difference between him and the blue-skinned Na'vi at the center of this film.

Yes, the gra-- hm, the CGI is that good. The scenery is exquisite and, I guess, realistic (or plausible. Yes, that's a better word. Yes...), but the real achievement comes in the animations of the faces. It's true that the Na'vi "actors"s are motion-capped, but clearly a lot of attention went into their faces so as to not make them wooden or retard-like (no offense to Mr. Rooney). That was actually something I was worried about them fucking up, and thankfully they did not.

Why is this being mentioned first? Because most of the time I feel like getting the bad news first. I'm a "maverick" that way. I "shoot from the hip." But in this case, I'm getting the good news out first. So in that sense, I'm a real "maverick."

Yes, the g-- CGI is the only really redeemable part of the film. Unfortunately, it is not a game-changer. It's not even a dealbreaker, or a doorbuster, or a sexhaver. And believe me, I know all about sexhavering, and this movie is not sex. Though it has sex in it. A bit. It's actually somewhat creepy. Details to follow.

And as alluded to earlier, the movie is available in 3D. That's three-dimensions, not tit expectations. And I did see it in non-red-blue 3D, "like it's supposed to be seen," according to everyone. The 3D effects are not bad or distracting (instead of one very amusing shot of a 2D photograph that actually had fields of depth in it). But 3D itself doesn't impress me. No, not since 3D World Runner have I got the appeal of 3D. I mean yeah, the objects appear to be coming out at you. So what? That's the gimmick right there, summed up in a sentence. The next step of 3D is holograms, and this movie is not a hologram, so it is not the next step. It's a very nice step but not the next step.

Many reviewers contend that the visuals alone are stunning enough to carry the film. No. No no no. As someone who lived through the Console Wars, I know that anyone saying something like this is either a shill or a fucking retard Genesis player (you fucking trogs). It's hokum. And it's a bad sign.

An out of this world space aventure!! Is the tagline of the film. I think. Well that's what it should be, because it is a cliche, a bad one. Misspelled. Hackneyed. And true.

The plot of the movie stinks. It stinks, says Jay Sherman, and for once he's right, as usual. Many reviewers tried to gloss over this by saying that everything else was cool. That's like saying that, aside from all the dough, the doughnut tasted great! No, if the dough sucks, the doughnut sucks. It's crap. Not even sprinkles can save it, and Cameron piled a lot of sprinkles on this.

And yes, it is "doughnut," not "donut" you illiterate bottomfeeders.

"But, but, but our handsome and very admirable host, film is primarily a visual medium!" Yes, but it's a film, as in a piece of art that involves a story. It's not like a fucking flipbook of a man waving his arms up and down. It has to have a story, and the story is integral. Unless you want to argue that Avatar is a 160-minute music video or something, which it isn't because I didn't hear any Meatloaf.

Shit goddamn now I'm hungry.

Anyway, yeah, there's not much going for this film in the story department. Quick recap: Earth is environmentally fucked, Jake Sully goes to Pandora, a moon in Alpha Centauri, to become an Avatar to communicate with these Na'vi people. EVILCORP wants to mine MCGUFFINIUM from under the Na'vi WORLD TREE, and Sully's job is to spy on them and shit. Which he does. Then EVILCORP blows up the WORLD TREE, Sully gets sad, then decides to lead the Na'vi into battle against EVILCORP. At first they're losing, and then they win because Pandora attacks EVILCORP and WINS. Then Sully becomes a literal Na'vi. Eyes open cue theme song FIN.

By the way, the previous paragraph may or may not have been a spoiler.

That's a very slapdash summary but it captures the essence of the film. "Well what's the matter?" you might ask. "Weren't the Terminator films simple at their core? Wasn't Aliens?" Well, if you nitpick and reduce any film enough, yeah, but you don't have to work hard to do that for Avatar. This is a story that makes no bones about the fact that it's on autopilot. Calling it "paint by numbers" is an insult to my favorite type of coloring book, and this one uses all the bland hues. Yes, it's nothing but blue. Literally. Almost literally. The whole blue section of the color wheel in the most predictable film since The Hangover (hint: it's a film about a hangover. BIG SURPRISE GUYS).

Still, most critics defend the movie saying that the action and the CGI make it top notch, and you get lost in the film. Well I had the opposite reaction. The film lost me because it was a story so dumb and, perhaps worse, so shallow that I constantly found myself stepping out (not literally) and asking questions. "Why is every animal on this planet an echo of our animal species but with an extra pair of legs? Why are there very large animals in the middle of a thick jungle? Where is the water for the waterfalls from the floating mountains coming from? And why are those mountains floating in the first place? What is earth like, other than saying that it's an environmental nightmare? How does Sully react to spending five years of his life sleeping on a spaceship?"

And more. And more. Cameron does a good job of painting a picture, but there are so many details in the film that go unexplained. And some of them are rather important. For instance, it's never made clear if the Na'vi are aware of how avatars work, precisely. Because when Sully is done being an avatar for the day, he wakes up in his own body and then hangs out with everyone else and eats and whatnot. But he also has to have some kind of regular sleep cycle because otherwise his mind would be constantly active, which would at least drive him insane within a month. So basically, either he is really awake 100% of the time, which would require an explanation, or he has to take a supplemental nap while his avatar is also asleep, which would mean that his avatar stays asleep longer than normal. Do the other Na'vi think that he's just a really really heavy sleeper? Nobody knows.

Yes I realize that that's a very confusing way of putting it but trust me, if you see the film and think about it, the paradox will become clear.

I'm not asking for an exposition explosion, but the plot is perfectly set up with Sully as the newby curious to learn how the world works and people around to explain it. But nothing is explained. Why is unobtainium so valuable? Because there's a critical supply of floating rocks? Humanity needs them to construct real-life Super Mario Bros. stages? There are supplementary explanations floating around the Internet, but like the whole Harry Potter tertiary shit, it doesn't count if it isn't in the story, and no explanations are given. I could go on and on but without seeing it I'm wasting my time.

Well, surely it has character? Yes, just like porcupine has fur. The movie is filled with characters, most of them... wait, no, all of them pretty much torn from the same cliche-ridden book. Nobody really stands out except perhaps the main Na'vi bitch, Netiri. Excuse me, Neytiri,

Let's see, there's stone-faced grunt curiousman protagonist, sarcastic scientist den mother, ultra-greedy corporate stooge, nail-eating psychopath military guy, milquetoast scientist dude, voluptious exotic one-with-the-earth gaiagirl, Native American spirit warrior chief, angry jealous brooding boyfriend, prickly Hispanic warrior amazon lady, and last but not least, Jamaican witch doctress.

That last paragraph would've worked better if this were a TV show and I could flash you an image of the characters on-screen. Well fuck it, let's move on.

Yes, the ensemble is basically this gang. While I can't complain about the acting, I can complain about how virtually nobody in the movie changes from beginning to end. Our main protagonist is a complete lunkhead, incurious and accident-prone, except when the script calls on him to be magnificent on the battlefield in wrangling flying monsters or putting it to the No. 1 Na'vi sexpot. For a cripple he's surprisingly... adept.

A lot of people complained that Sam Worthington had no charisma as Sully. Well yeah, it's hard to have charisma when you're puking lines that are cringe-inducing under any circumstances. Humphrey Bogart could've been Jake Sully and it would still have been disastrous.

Neytiri, while Sade-like in exoticness, has no real personality to speak of. She's vaguely environmental and spiritual, but we have no idea of how she was before meeting Sully. We can assume that she's a goddamned flake because she falls head-over-heels for him in like four months, it's ridiculous. Her entire purpose of the movie is to tsundere out, and you can set your watch by her mood swings.

Then there's her boyfriend, whose name I forget because he is the epitome of forgettable character. Her NA'VI boyfriend is the son of the chief or whatever. He's supposed to be a great warrior but naturally he gets his ass kicked by a rookie Na'vi in Jake Sully in a duel over Neytiri's honor. Then he spends the rest of the film sulking like a baby.

The direct analogue, you could say, is that he's like Billy Zane's character in Titanic, except that's completely unfair. Zane's character actually had depth, and we actually saw him in his element, being a prick and all that. You could form an opinion about him. You can't do it with this jealous boyfriend cut-up because he's on screen for like two minutes, then he dies, and nobody gives a shit. Nobody. Not even the character himself, probably.

The only character with any real umph in him is Col. Quattrich, the aforementioned Bryan Fury guy. His character is one-dimensional as shit but at least he makes a great villain in theory. In practice, he's wasted on this film. Quattrich is the kind of guy who probably eats things just to see if his teeth and intestines can handle them. He wants to fight everything, and so in that way he's your stereotypical meathead soldier boy. But he's designed so intriguingly, and the actor (Stephen Lang) does a good job of making him snarl and be priggish.

But he's not a very good villain overall because he's dog stupid. And he has no ambition other than to KILL KILL KILL. He'd make a great henchman to a more capable villain. It looks like Cameron wasted all of his creative juices, and there weren't that many to begin with.

I take it you didn't like it then. No shit? I tried to be generous and give it 2.5/5, a C grade if there ever was one, but that's only because of the 3D effects. Without 3D, it's at most a 2/5. 40%. In most public schools, that's an A. But here, it's a C- and you better believe Cameron's parents are going to hear about this at parent/teacher night. Oh yes. And I can see you giving me the finger under your desk, now you can clean up the work room after school.

Like Titanic, Cameron expects his film's wow-factor to, well, wow everyone over, like a cloak of stupid being pulled over the audience's eyes. In Titanic's case, it was a grandiose plot and a very strong dash of pretentiousness, plus Bill Paxton's dreamy eyes, that made Titanic seem "big." Of course, it was probably Leo DiCaprio who actually brought in the money, but that's not something Cameron would probably like to admit.

But while Titanic was piled up with flaws, it at least pulled itself together for a somewhat compelling third act. Avatar also has a somewhat compelling third act, but by then I was bored with it. I knew what was going to happen even moreso than with Titanic (although admittedly, the ship sinking was a good twist). I mean, the action sequence is fine and all, but by then I felt the movie had pretty much offered up its best shot. And of course, the bad guys lose because Mother Nature (or Mother Pandora, I guess) literally unleashes all of the planet's wildkin on the bad guys and she wins and the bad guys lose because they're bad. So really it was a pointless exercise.

And that's ultimately the film's fatal flaw: There's nothing going on. Cameron is probably thinking he's making a profound statement, but he's not. It'd be like if Martin Luther King gave his I Have a Dream speech by dribbling his lips with his finger. And not even as funny. This film is a very shiny, very neat pile of expendible. $500 million worth of expendible.

When directors fail with a big-budget film, they usually fail in cringe-inducing ways, like the excerable Transformers 2 or G.I. Joe, or Peter Jackson's King Kong. Those are films so bad that you feel an overwhelming sense of embarrassment for everyone involved. With Avatar, at least you can say that it was just a piss-poor attempt by a has-been director. You pretend it's not a serious effort. It's Cameron just playing around like a baby and we're all just supposed to stand back and make sure he doesn't hurt himself/anyone else. And every once in a while go, "Oh yes, Jimmy, that's a nice bucket you got there, that's a good boy!!"

The only question left is, is it worse than Titanic? That's a damn good question. Titanic was terrible because it was shocking. How could the guy who made Alien, Aliens and the Terminators cough up such a putrid, cloying, nonsensical lump of a film? It's like walking in on your girlfriend screwing a bear. A grizzly bear. You just don't know how to handle it. I mean, if it was with a great brown bear that'd be one thing, but really honey? A grizzly?

But with Avatar, we walk in and, oh yes, there's that bear again, doffing the love of your life. Just try not to make so much noise, okay? The shock is over. I expected this from Cameron and, by golly, there it is. And don't think I came into the movie trying to hate on it. The film is so flawed that I had to scold myself to not hate on it. I had to tip the scales, and really, when you find yourself doing that, is it worth it in the first place?

But yeah, I think Avatar and Titanic are the same film, really. But at least now we've reached the acceptance stage with Cameron and, like Lucas, understand that he has passed on and we're just left with his retarded shadow of his former self. Unfortunately, we may soon have to say the same thing about Spielberg, but that's for another day.

So yeah. Don't see Avatar unless you are on serious drugs or something. Or if you're a furry. And if you're a fucking furry then you better tell me now because, hey, I no longer have anything left to lose by knowing how crapped up you are.

Fuck You 2009

I'm fucking done with Christmas already so I'm moving on to New Year's. There's no doubt the year 2009 was a very awful year. Even personally. Sure it was okay for the most part, then it culminated in a very wonderfully executed backstab that was totally called for. But beyond li'l ol' me, the entire world continued to cascade towards a very miserable end, a process made all the more apparent in this wretched year.

Lest I sound like a nihilist instead of a cynic, let me describe what did go well this year:

Kept my job, even got a raise and a promotion.
Yankees won the World Series.
The Large Hadron Collider didn't blow itself up and is actually working on shit.

There, those were the nice things. Drowned out by the torrent of shit I will describe next. There were so many wonderful things that happened that I've condensed to the five most prominent things. So enjoy, just for you, the most miserable things that have happened in this the best of all possible years.

1. Tiger Woods is human after all. The Tiger Woods debacle could not have started in a better way. What at first looked like a potentially tragic car accident turned into a mystery, and then a farce, and then a full-on comedy series worthy of Larry David. Woods showed us that it really is the quiet ones you should be keeping an eye on.

Of course, Woods' image was carefully constructed over the years, perhaps moreso than any other athlete in history. So it was inevitable that the facade would crack. He was made to look like a wholesome family man, but that image never really registered with people. Being an athlete, his fans were more interested in him robotically dismantling the competition on the golf course. Which he did. And they were grateful.

Oddly enough, the challenge became to "humanify" him, turn him into just one of the guys. That was the goal from the beginning when it became apparent that he was a prodigy. A young guy, who's also black, playing GOLF?????????? Yes, finally, the PGA would have an avenue to being hip and cool with this robotic youngster destroying the competition.

It worked, sort of. He raked in ratings and interest in golf, but he didn't really succeed in making golf a prominent sport, or any more prominent than it was when he got started. It's really tough to build up a sport when you only have one prominent star, with his only competition being the buffoonish Phil Mickelson. It's even tougher when your sport is more inaccessible to the masses than ice hockey.

But beyond that, Woods' image always appeared to be awkward when he was trying to look like an ordinary person. He's not an ordinary person. Nobody else can be Tiger Woods, not just because we can't golf like he can, but also because... just what was his deal, anyway? He seemed to be just a very reserved person, an impression that shone through whatever image he was trying to build.

And then this happened. Or really, it was happening all along, under our noses. I find it impossible that nobody else knew this was going on. And apparently the wife had more than an inkling that it was happening.

I'm not reveling in Woods' calamitous fall from grace because I never really gave a shit about him in the first place. I'm similarly unmoved by people denouncing him for having tricks on the side. In terms of criminal behavior, his ranks on the low end of the spectrum: distasteful, but what am I supposed to do about it? The guy's a jerk, whoop de do. I'm a jerk too. And so are you. Especially you. How about I denounce you instead? I can denounce every single person on this planet in excructiating detail and it wouldn't make a difference.

About the only positive thing that came from this was a slew of delightful low-rent animations detailing Tiger's infidelities. Enjoy.

2. Michael Jackson got died. MJ's death was about as shocking as the death of your nana. Your 105-year old nana. Who had liver cancer and pneumonia and pluracy. You can't expect someone who's popping that many pills to survive for long, but apparently a lot of people did.

Unlike the "shocking" death of your loved ones, though, this wasn't merely inconvenient. In fact it was very convenient. His financial handlers were clearly prepared for this and descended on his corpse like the buzzards they are. Before long, his entire musical catalogue was resurrected, and for one and a half blissful weeks in summer, we got to know Michael all over again.

Well not really. We heard a lot from his supposed friends and family, who were caught COMPLETELY OFF GUARD by MJ's medicine-induced terminus. I used to give the benefit of the doubt to his family that they were trying to get him to come clean and stop acting like an absolutely weirdo, but now that the surviving Jacksons are making their own reality show and are trying to break back into music, I can only assume they were in on the plan to. Lucky them. If only we could all get famous by standing on the shoulders of the recently deceased.

The sorry affair reached its apex with the memorial service held reverently in the sacred grounds of a place called the Staples Center. A ton of his closest friends showed up to perform and weep and act sorry. Oh, I didn't know he was friends with Magic Johnson. I wonder why he never spoke about this before. Oh, Mariah Carey is there. And Usher. This is the kind of funeral that would rival the Pope's!

Like a lookie-loo from some third world country, I watched the service and was thoroughly impressed by how psychotic it became. My personal highlight was watching Al Sharpton extoll MJ for advancing the plight of blacks in music, because beforehand you hardly ever heard a black soul on the radio. And he paid them back by turning white.

The only good thing you could say is that his death marked an uptick of his appearance on the radio. As it turns out, he's still better than 90% of the music on today. And that's why I'll always hold out a little bit of respect for MJ no matter how freakish he became.

I don't know if it's ironic or fitting that his death overshadowed the demise of Farrah Fawcett. The only nice thing anyone could think to saying about her was that she was a lovely pin-up girl. I'm sure that went over well with her spouse? And then he also overshadowed the nonsense that was going on in Iran. Remember that? Yeah, I knew you didn't.

Speaking of which...

3. Twitter is for losers. I never understood Twitter. I still don't. I speak of it in the past tense because it is past tense. The fad is over. The technology is dripping away like POGs and I will be shocked if people still use it seriously a year from now.

There's no point in tooting my own horn for not using Twitter. It's like saying I don't floss my teeth with rancid cow entrails. Why should I be proud of that? I think people who brag about how they don't use Twitter are just as dumb as those who do. And I say this with full knowledge that a) I kinda just did anyway and b) a lot of friends use it. But they're dumb for doing so. Everyone's stupid so stop being such a fucking prick about me criticizing it you twerp.

But Twitter strikes me as the culmination of all the banality that the Internat has to offer. I don't care what you're doing at every given moment. Even when I was crazy about you I didn't care. I'm not a weirdo in that way. And I don't find it particularly insightful, and I'm not interested in whatever link you found today that's already four days old and sorry, chum, you're behind the curve and reposting shitty links just reveals you for the bore that you are.

And that's all that people do on Twitter. Hey, check out this video of the otter! Yes the video I heard about two days ago when it first hit the net, aren't I special? Oh wow, look at what this idiot said on the TV! Yeah I saw it live, what do you think about it? Oh you only have 140 characters so you can't interject your thoughts. Haha, isn't it funny what this guy tweeted? If it was so fucking funny why is he only getting exposure on Twitter? You're a dunce.

So in other words, Twitter perfectly captures the inanity that is every single person. It makes me lose respect for folks because I can clearly see that they've joined in on it to fit in. But Twitter is too much. It's too banal. It's too stupid. It's too pointless. Most people can't adequately express themselves in 140-character belches to a pool of disinterested people. And if you can't do that, then shut up. You make yourself look retarded. I don't care if @jackass retweets you, he's only doing so out of courtesy because he's your "follower" or whatever the fuck. Life is full of pointless customs, I don't need them infecting the Internet. Facebook does that well enough.

Twitter has been trying to imprint itself on the public conscience for over a year now, to little success. What a surprise, a service that relies entirely on bare-bones crap has trouble catching on? But instead of trying to make their product worth a damn, Twitter's creators bombarded the news networks with stories about how fucking revolutionary their idiot service was. And it worked. CNN now has a Twitter feed and, to make matters worse, actually solicits the punters to give their input on whatever. I didn't care what @loserfromalbuquerque thinks about Obama's latest speech when I read about it on his feed, why should I care now that some pencil-necked retard on the TV is reading it? I don't know who he is and I don't want to know who he is.

The peak came, obviously, during that little Iranian dustup, when Iranian kids supposedly coordinated by tweeting at each other. That's when I knew they were doomed. First of all, don't rely on the Internet when you're running a revolution in a closed society. Second of all, don't rely on an anonymous messaging service when you're running a revolution in a police state, you dumb stupid fools.

People were expecting that Twitter would magically buttress this revolution, and they would prevail because they all knew to appear in Persian Square at 1 pm for a totally happenin' rally. At first it seemed to be working. They seemed to be scoring propaganda coups against the government and alerting the world that something foul was afoot in the happy state of Iran. But then some people wised up and started telling everyone to shut their mouths because the ayatollahs were listening in.

Too late! The urban kids fell for the Twitter bait hook, line and sinker. While some legit protesters were screaming at the top of their lungs for everyone to not appear at these honeypot rallies designed specifically to capture and savage the protesters, everyone else was gung ho on driving this Twitter revolution to its logical conclusion. And its logical conclusion was that the people who have guns and batons and tear gas and armored vehicles beat the living tar out of the unarmed ones whose only recourse was a shitty Internet service that was more useful for spreading disinformation than anything else.

Evil wins because good is stupid, my friends. And Twitter was the grand-high moron that no doubt contributed to more than a few skulls being needlessly cracked. The revolution didn't go out with a bang, it got covered up by an even larger earth-shattering event: MJ's death. And so the darling of the Twitter cause was snuffed out. What a surprise.

Despite the government intervening and demanding that Twitter stay online (no doubt to assist the CIA in running whatever idiot venture they were), nothing could come from it. And at any rate, Twitter was beaten at its own game. YouTube proved to be a far more valuable propaganda outlet. Retweeting #neda just doesn't have the same effect as watching her die in front of your eyes. But even that wasn't enough.

Twitter will probably vanish within two years, probably earlier when some enterprising people develop twitterbots to make the service even more retarded than it is now. I wonder if they'll keep it up indefinitely, letting bots take over like beetles infesting a corpse.

As for what it is now, the only Twitter feed worth a damn is @THE REAL SHAQ because Shaq understood how stupid it was at the beginning, and thus turned it into something entertaining. Virtually nobody else on the service has the brainpower to figure that out.

But also a quick fun incident that happened recently: When Bengals WR Chris Henry died recently, his death was first reported erroneously on Twitter, on purpose. Someone had the clever idea to impersonate a sports journalist and report that he died. And people went along with it because they are stupid. And then SOMEHOW, I don't know how, it got out that Nelson Mandela died. Except he didn't. But dumb people believed in that too. And then they learned that neither Mandela nor Henry had (yet) died, and became mad. Some even thought that the Mandela death notice was planted by the filmmakers of "Invictus" to increase promotion.

The fun thing about Twitter is that maybe it was. Either way, whoever came up with it is far funnier than any of the deliberate attempts at so-called humor on it. It's easy to just fart out whatever random piece of junk you think will make people laugh. It's quite another to actually expose a whole swath of people for the complete morons that they are. So thanks for that, Twitter. You can quietly die now.

2. Some people just want to watch the world burn. If you don't want to, though, tough. You can't avert your eyes from global climate change. It's queer, it's here, get used to it, because our overlords certainly are.

The Copenhagen Global Climate Summit, recently ongoing, was supposed to be the point at which all the world's leaders got serious about addressing climate change. Right, it was that if you were a dumbass. Nothing good can ever come from a bunch of rich politicians meeting up.

Copenhagen, pronounced Keh-van-hey-gen, or something, has not yet concluded, so maybe a worthwhile framework for combatting climate change will emerge. That means fuck all because frameworks don't do anything if nobody wants them to do anything. And so far all that's really happened was that China drew up some carbon reduction goals and small island nations like Tuvalu are begging the world not to let their islands disappear and Obama got mad and shit. Nobody is expecting anything serious to emerge.

The greatest polluters, bar none, are the Chinese. If you've seen some of the industrial wastelands that are popping up, you'd see it to. Literal rivers of sludge, mountains of garbage, and most of all, smog all over the place. Imagine if Los Angeles split apart like an amoeba and took over the west coast. I'm terribly sorry for inflicting that image on you.

But at least the Chinese are claiming to have a plan. The United States has a plan too, sorta. It's called "cap and trade," where we (I think) tax polluting industries, and then take that tax dollars and fund non-polluting industries, or something. It sounds like it could work, but this is the United States and we are a capitalist nation. Cap and trade, as weak as it would be, probably won't even be enacted. And either way, it's a gigantic scam waiting to happen. I could go into detail but I'm pretty sure you would not give the slightest fuck. Sorry to intrude.

For extra fun, there was a recent scandal about some e-mails from some climate research group in England, and those e-mails were released to the public. These e-mails contain scientists talking amongst themselves about adjusting the data they've discovered, fairly innocuous stuff. Well, you can imagine that the batshit right wing of this country went ballistic and used it as proof that global warming is a fraud.

There are a lot of people still invested in the notion that global warming is either a) not real or b) not man-made. They do so because they are scared. Scared scaredy cats, frightened of the "A" word (no, not "Audi"). They want things to just keep going like they do, ~*forver*~, like true love, also another pile of bullshit.

Okay I take that back, true love is not bullshit. It does suck major ass, though.

Anyway, these trogladytes don't want us to do anything about it because it's not their fuckin' problem, you dig? Except it is. I'm not an expert on climatology. I don't know how they do what they do. I only have a slight understanding of their techniques and data and models. But I do know something that doesn't require fancy shmancy degrees.

There is desertification in China. As in, the ground is literally turning into desert. Not dessert. Not sherbet. Not tiramisu or a sundae or, worse, crumb cake. Sand. Miles and miles of sand where crops once grew. How can this be? Well gee, how else does land dry out?

Glaciers are melting and disappearing. Kilimanjaro and other mountains of similar elevations are now bare. No more ice. Rivers are starting to disappear too. I don't think they've moved on to greener pastures, I think they've all fuckin' evaporated. I remember my water cycle. They're all up in the sky near the smiling sun and I don't think they're going to come back down any time soon. How could this be??

The ice caps are melting. The home of Santa Claus is starting to retreat. The Russians know this and have already staked out turf to dig for oil and straggling elves to interrogate so as to learn the ways of Kringle. The Northwest Passage, which was completely frozen over when we found it, now opens in the summer. Pretty soon it'll be taking year-long passes.

Things aren't much better in Antarctica. The ice shelf there is slowly but surely thawing and is not regenerating as robustly as it once was. Recently, a big fucking chunk of ice fell off of it and is now floating to Australia, which goes to show you that Antarctic ice is both melting and a poor choose of vacation spots. Really? What's wrong with Tierra del Fuego?

These things aren't supposed to happen, but they are. I wonder why? Could it be THE PLANET'S ATMOSPHERE IS FUCKING GETTING WARMER? But since this is winter it means it's cold out and then we get the supreme dumbasses going LOL WHERE'S GLOBAL WARMING??? I look forward to them hearing that when they're being drowned by a tidal wave. They'll probably bitch that the water is too cold for it to be global warming.

Did Copenhagen represent the last chance for humanity to stop this? Some say that chance passed even before, but it's clear that come hell or high water, we are going to ride this global climate change jazz out. Or we won't. Funny how cavalier we are about the fate of literally the whole of human civilization, but anything to keep us in our cars.

1. Change you can bereave in. I feel sorry for American liberals. Well, some of them. There are a few smart ones surrounded by mouthbreathers, so in that way I can relate to them.

The big story of last year was the presidential election, so it follows that the big story this year was Year One of the Obama presidency. Finally, we get to see the result of our labors! And by "we," I mean millions of people who couldn't see a Trojan Horse candidate if fucking Achilles himself presented it, and it was literally a giant wooden horse, and every now and then you could hear someone say "Who keeps grabbing at my balls?" in Greek coming from inside.

What did we get? A very nice but boring inauguration, followed by Senator Byrd (I think) collapsing at the dinner, and then the Obamas dancing the night away (with every single fucking shindig they showed up to playing "At Last." Jesus Christ).

And then it just got worse.

Obama has gone above and beyond the call of duty. Perhaps watching Bush fuck everything up has taken all the fun out of it, but Obama certainly did his measure best to ruin all the good will he brought up. I've gone over this before at length, so you know the highlights, but with this latest health care debacle, even his ardent liberal followers are starting to smell the bullshit. Thanks guys, good thing you still have time to undo this mess you've created for everyone.

Time magazine recently named Ben Bernanke as its man of the year. They're wrong. Bernanke exists because men like Obama let him exist. Obama is the master thief that gives Bernanke agency to do whatever the fuck he wants. And we all suffer and die for it. Obama is the man of the year. He takes Peace Prizes for waging wars, he sells the country out with a smile, and he tries to be so accomodating that he graciously lets his corporate adversaries do whatever they want.

He's a charlatan of the rankest order, but this is coming as a surprise to far too many people. I mean yeah, it was cool when he beat McCain, but anyone who was expecting him to be a net positive for the country needed to go back to the crib and take a long fucking nap. The youngsters that came out so enthusiastically for him were just as retarded as their old, crusty senior counterparts who vote purely on whatever lizard impulse springs into their hoary heads. I could just blame Obama for being so slick but I don't like letting people off when they're culpable. So fuck you Obama voters.



Yeah yeah, so much for that. The world's an awful place, man, why are you complaining about it? Because it's more fun than pretending that everything's going to be alright. People who say that are the worst of the worst. No, it's not going to be alright, and when it's not alright, don't come bitching to me with some crybaby story about how baaaaad things are to you. And life is far more interesting when you look at the troubles that need to be fixed instead of the happy, boring shitty stories you pile up and then barf on everyone around you. Trust me, you're not impressing anyone with your stupid anecdotes and your chiding for people to "lighten up." How about you get a life?

The best part about most of these stories is that you can't run away from them, either. No, there was no running and hiding this year, try as everyone might. Some people hate to be wrong when they make dire predictions or proclamations, but not me. It shows that I'm still in touch, right or wrong, and if I'm not in touch, then I'm a helpless babby that has to rely on others to show me what's up. Ignorance is bliss until life punches you in the face. So you can ignore some of these things without penalty, but good luck ignoring the other shit when it starts ripping away planks of your life like an irate scrap-metal harvester.

2010 is shaping up to be another wonderful year, too, because things are on the downslide. We have 2010 midterm elections where Republicans have a better than even chance at triumphing. We have the Olympics. We have some awful movies coming up. And best of all, you never know what'll happen! Maybe we'll bomb Iran? Maybe Pakistan will fall? Maybe I'll find true love? You never know, maybe 2010 will be a good year after all.

But don't bet on it.

Merry Fuckin' Christmas

It's like the one-year anniversary of this retarded blog, which means it's Christmastime again. And things could not be worse.

Christmas 2008 was kinda bland. Obama won, but anyone with a brain could've told you that nothing was gonna change. The corner store was blasting Christmas music. "The Dark Knight" was coming out on blu-ray. All in all, a wash at best.

Flashing forward to today, if that's at all possible metaphorically, and we're not even close to where we were last year. In other words, we were in a hole in 2008. Now we're near the core of the planet, except it's a shitball planet and the core is made of raw sewage.

I'm thinking that the best course of action this year is to just skip Christmas. Cancel the whole rotten thing. Trying to make everyone merry for profit this time isn't going to cut it. Wishing the world a merry Christmas is like walking into the Sahara with an umbrella and going, "It's time for rain!!"

If I need to describe why things are such a bother, then I have to wonder just what the hell you're up to. The economy is teetering like a drunk on a highwire, above a pool with agitated alligators, and maybe a shark, and a swimming scorpion, and Cthulhu for good measure. The only question is who will munch on it first. My money's on the scorpion, actually. Those bastards are dynamite when they're pissed.

And that's not all. Everyone is getting clearly pissed off, even me. Obama is such a turd that even his most ardent Obamatars are taking a good long look in the mirror. His recent foray into Afghanistan can't make anything better. That's just what the country needs on its conscience: more blown up brown people. I sound like a fuckin' peacenik here.

Black Friday came and went without incident. That's actually not a good thing. I'm sure Wal-Mart was all torn up over that worker who was trampled to death last year, but this year was quiet. Too quiet. The hungry capitalist beast does not like quiet, but there it is, you fat bastard. Shoppers did not really come through so far, and it's hard to see why they should.

The biggest items this year are what? Gap is still prattling on about scarves and flannel and sweaters and whatever. Sometimes I wish Old Navy would resurrect that old Harry Caray lady and regale us with more performance fleece. Well who the hell is going to shell out $40 for a scarf when they can just raid the poor house? Oh that's right.

BestBuy is being insufferable with some faux wasslers informing intelligent shoppers that they need to buy flatscreen TVs. Is that the best they can do? Big HDTVs? They've been selling those for years now.

Jared now has some new diamond where you can woo deaf women, or something. It looks like a coiling snake, actually. It's called the Pandora diamond. If only it would really unleash chaos. Anyway those commercials are just what you expect them to be.

At least there are no car commercials, yet. No big bows or any of that shit. Then again, it's hard to sell cars when your business model is extinct. Ho ho ho, GM.

They even messed up the Hess truck. Oh wait, it's not a truck, it's a giant F1 racer with, surprise! a mini F1-racer in it. No, neither of those are trucks, Hess. Don't tell me you've run out of ideas.

Beyond the commercials, though, everyone is addled. Cops are getting shot, non-cops are getting shot, flu shots are in a shortage, Hot Shots Part 3 has not yet been made, and the movies all appear to be garbage. Well, "Ninja Assassin" was pretty good. That's what we need this Christmas: a movie about eviscerating others.

Before Thanksgiving (remember that funny little holiday?), they released yet another version of "A Christmas Carol," this time in CG and starring a very old Jim Carrey. People complained that one part of the movie was rather dour, the part where the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals Ignorance and Want to Scrooge and flaunts his bullshit in his wrinkled face. What a surprise, people don't like to be reminded of suffering. Well good luck getting away with hiding that this year.

I really can't imagine Christmas cheer settling in this year. 106.7 is trying its darndest by going 24-hours of Christmas, but their song selections are different this year. They're using more obscure versions of the old hits. Why? They don't sound any better. Maybe they realize that something is off this year, too.

The epitome of this Christmas was Obama's speech announcing the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Not even most Americans think that's the "good war" anymore, so in a way it was a comedy tour de force. And of course it pre-empted "A Charlie Brown's Christmas," arguably the best of all Christmas specials. It's the one where Linus reminds people about Jesus, but sorry Linus, Obama has to look like a tough guy and sentence thousands of people to death only to lose re-election. That's America's Christmas in a nutshell.

The only people who are gonna have any fun this Christmas are, of course, going to be the kids of the rich. I'll try to have fun too, but this year the bothers of Christmas are more apparent than the joys. It doesn't help that I don't really have anyone to send meaningful gifts to now. Scratch that, I do have one but it's not under ideal circumstances. Giving gifts is fun when you put thought into it, but simply vomitting up a wishlist or handing out gift cards is more like buying groceries from a list. I mean sure, you might like what you're getting, but it's so predictable.

And then we have all the stupid Christmas specials. There are some new ones this year but I'm pretty sure they all rely on the tried-and-true formula of furry CGI animal needs to buy someone a gift and can't figure out what to get!!! Stop me if you heard this one before (you should be stopping me right now).

And then we have the post-Christmas letdown, the people becoming suicidal when they can't reach out to anyone (now possibly with a dose of homicide this time), people whining about giving out a hundred Christmas cards when they know they don't need to do that at all, etc. At least football will be on Christmas Eve.

The season of perpetual hope is being drowned out by the realization of perpetual trouble. Nobody can paper over the turd that's being dumped on everyone except the rich, of course, so I expect things to get very, very ugly out there as Christmas nears. And then once we clear Christmas, there comes the death stretch until Easter to remind us all, especially those relying on soup kitchens and holiday clothing drives, that Christmas comes but once a year, now enjoy your winter.

For a cynic like me, this isn't much of a surprise or a shock. It's not me you should be worrying about. It's everyone who hasn't yet accepted that this is as good as it'll get this year, and they outnumber me by about, oh, 250 million to one.

And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.