I'll admit I was a Destiny addict. In case you don't know, Destiny is a first person shooter, massively multiplayer online. role playing video game. Or try saying MMORPG FPS video game. Whew. But my addiction was broken and I'm not buying Bungie's game.
Here's why I'm not buying Destiny 2. The first Destiny had major problems. The story lacked exposition. Remember the Stranger. Yeah, she had the great line, "I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain." So you didn't care about anybody or anything in the world. Then there were the Raids. These were large form missions that you needed other players to perform They were sadistic. Because many times if one player didn't perform his task in a puzzle of a raid then the whole raid would fail. That led to the other people yelling at the guy who screwed up. And yes, I've messed up. So, it was me at times. Finally, there was the nerfing of weapons. Nerfing means that a developer will weaken a weapon or power. In the first Destiny, if a weapon or power became popular, Bungie would nerf it. So all the work you put to getting that great gun was for naught. This led me and other players to say, "F...k you Bungie."
Now if Destiny 2 fixed the sadistic raids and the nerfing, I might reconsider. But in the future, I'll look to the new Wolfenstein game.
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
God to conservative Republicans: "Here's more proof of global warming. Hurricane Irma."
Hurricane Irma is now a category 5 storm. It could hit Puerto Rico, The Virgin Islands and maybe Florida. (USA Today story) We have just gotten out of Hurricane Harvey. Hey, President Trump and your conservative Republican buddies. How much more death and destruction do you need to see before you believe that global warming is causing these storms to become monsters? Hurricane Katrina. Sandy. And now Hurricane Harvey and Irma.
Check out this excellent Vox video detailing the science behind the strengthening of hurricanes due to global warming or climate change. Vote liberal Democrat, if you want to live.
Check out this excellent Vox video detailing the science behind the strengthening of hurricanes due to global warming or climate change. Vote liberal Democrat, if you want to live.
Wind River review
The great thing about movies is that they can take us to a place that you don't see everyday. The modern Native American society is such a place. Wind River takes place in the Wyoming Indian reservation of the same name. The question for this film is whether it's a fair depiction of modern Native American life.
In Wind River, Fish and Wildlife officer Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) is hunting a predator on the Wind River Indian reservation when he discovers the body of a young, native American girl. He calls in Ben (Graham Greene) , the tribe's police chief. The body shows signs of rape. They bring in FBI agent Jane Banner. (Elizabeth Olsen) With magic of Banner and the eagle eye marksmenship of Lambert, they're able to bring the bad guys to justice. Um... sorry. That's the Avengers. Look, I had to make an Avengers joke here. You do have the actors who play Hawkeye and The Scarlet Witch.
Anyway, let's go over what Wind River gets right. The acting is excellent. Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen turn in their usual good performances. But I want to talk about the outstanding performances by the Native American cast. They all express themselves as modern Native Americans. It's quite believable. Legendary Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves) is a practical cop who has to deal with the obstacles of enforcing the law in a large rural area. . The victim's father played by Gil Birmingham. He's grief stricken and suffers from serious depression. Julia Jones is Cory's long suffering wife. Let's hope that they get more work in the future.
Director and writer Taylor Sheridan has made a good drama with a balanced emphasis on character, nature, action and mystery. Where the movie stumbles is Sheridan's handling of action pieces. He relies too much on the editing to replace the action versus letting the camera do the work. For example, there's a scene where gunmen are starting to flank the cops leading to a Mexican standoff. It would be better if Sheridan let the camera follow the gunmen rather than editing it with fast cuts. I t's more coherent.
Then there's this white-centric telling of the story from two white characters. . Why not write this story from a Native American's viewpoint? While it might be good commercial sense to write a lead character as white and cast a known actor. But we don't get enough of the modern Native American culture when that happens. This movie might have been better if the Lambert character was Native American. You could still have a FBI agent played by a known actor. And speaking of the FBI agent, Elizabeth Olsen's Jane is given little to work with in regards to exposition. Too often, she bursts into emotions. Those come out of nowhere.
The movie doesn't do enough to show the modern Native American culture. What we get from the movie is all of the bad stuff. Drug use. Unemployment. Poverty. And Sheridan has the strange idea to end the movie with a literal statement about missing Native American women. Well, okay but this movie barely touches that.
Wind River is well made mystery-drama. But don't look to this movie as showing you anything about what it is to be a Native American in today's world. The grade is B..
In Wind River, Fish and Wildlife officer Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) is hunting a predator on the Wind River Indian reservation when he discovers the body of a young, native American girl. He calls in Ben (Graham Greene) , the tribe's police chief. The body shows signs of rape. They bring in FBI agent Jane Banner. (Elizabeth Olsen) With magic of Banner and the eagle eye marksmenship of Lambert, they're able to bring the bad guys to justice. Um... sorry. That's the Avengers. Look, I had to make an Avengers joke here. You do have the actors who play Hawkeye and The Scarlet Witch.
Anyway, let's go over what Wind River gets right. The acting is excellent. Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen turn in their usual good performances. But I want to talk about the outstanding performances by the Native American cast. They all express themselves as modern Native Americans. It's quite believable. Legendary Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves) is a practical cop who has to deal with the obstacles of enforcing the law in a large rural area. . The victim's father played by Gil Birmingham. He's grief stricken and suffers from serious depression. Julia Jones is Cory's long suffering wife. Let's hope that they get more work in the future.
Director and writer Taylor Sheridan has made a good drama with a balanced emphasis on character, nature, action and mystery. Where the movie stumbles is Sheridan's handling of action pieces. He relies too much on the editing to replace the action versus letting the camera do the work. For example, there's a scene where gunmen are starting to flank the cops leading to a Mexican standoff. It would be better if Sheridan let the camera follow the gunmen rather than editing it with fast cuts. I t's more coherent.
Then there's this white-centric telling of the story from two white characters. . Why not write this story from a Native American's viewpoint? While it might be good commercial sense to write a lead character as white and cast a known actor. But we don't get enough of the modern Native American culture when that happens. This movie might have been better if the Lambert character was Native American. You could still have a FBI agent played by a known actor. And speaking of the FBI agent, Elizabeth Olsen's Jane is given little to work with in regards to exposition. Too often, she bursts into emotions. Those come out of nowhere.
The movie doesn't do enough to show the modern Native American culture. What we get from the movie is all of the bad stuff. Drug use. Unemployment. Poverty. And Sheridan has the strange idea to end the movie with a literal statement about missing Native American women. Well, okay but this movie barely touches that.
Wind River is well made mystery-drama. But don't look to this movie as showing you anything about what it is to be a Native American in today's world. The grade is B..
Sunday, September 3, 2017
Farewell Walter Becker
Walter Becker, co-founder of the jazz-rock band, Steely Dan has passed away. (Walter Becker wikipedia page) He played guitar and co-wrote the songs. This band was one of the groups that led me to love jazz. God speed Walter. Here's Steely Dan's song "Black Cow" from the album Aja. Becker is playing rhythm guitar to the left of lead singer Donald Fagen. I've always loved this sweet piece of jazz-funk.
Friday, September 1, 2017
Ivanka Trump is a fake feminist
Yesterday, White House Adviser, "Princess" Ivanka Trump, supported the scuttling of an Obama equal pay initiative that would give the nation an idea of how bad pay discrimination is for women and people of color. (Huffington Post) Without such data of pay disparity, it will be easy for white men like her father, President Trump to argue that there is no discrimination in the workplace. Women of America, do not let Princess Ivanka fool you. She's a fake feminist. And remember. Vote liberal Democrat, if you want to live.
Princess Ivanka's maternity leave initiative only benefits married women and the child care deduction is worthless to the poor. Here's Michelle Wolf of The Daily Show to skewer Princess Ivanka.
John Oliver's look at Princess Ivanka and her husband, "savior of the world", Jared Kushner. Warning: It's a little salty. Plus, Kushner's real voice is as funny as the one in the piece. The real Kushner sounds like he just passed puberty.
And here's Saturday Night Live's fake ad for a Princess Ivanka perfume aptly called "Complicit."
Princess Ivanka's maternity leave initiative only benefits married women and the child care deduction is worthless to the poor. Here's Michelle Wolf of The Daily Show to skewer Princess Ivanka.
John Oliver's look at Princess Ivanka and her husband, "savior of the world", Jared Kushner. Warning: It's a little salty. Plus, Kushner's real voice is as funny as the one in the piece. The real Kushner sounds like he just passed puberty.
And here's Saturday Night Live's fake ad for a Princess Ivanka perfume aptly called "Complicit."
Fox News' employee admits that the old Clinton email scandal is just a diversion for Trump-Russia scandal
Tomi Lahren just admitted that Fox News's obsession with Hillary Clinton's emails is about throwing a smoke screen against the Trump-Russia scandal. (Huffington Post; Lahren's Tweet below)
To answer your question, Tomi, "When Trump is impeached and all of his men are removed from office, that's when we'll stop talking about Trump-Russia."
.@TomiLahren: "How about when the mainstream media stops covering Russia day in and day out, maybe we can drop the Hillary email scandal." pic.twitter.com/OwfYWfuhDD
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 31, 2017
To answer your question, Tomi, "When Trump is impeached and all of his men are removed from office, that's when we'll stop talking about Trump-Russia."
It was here first: Preparing for Trump pardons of Kushner and Trump Jr.
Let me be "Trumpian" here and say I beat the mainstream media. I suggested New York step in legally if Trump tries to pardon his way out of the Russia scandal. ( 8-25-17) Okay, I don't know if I actually beat the media but Politico just published a story that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Special Counsel Robert Mueller are working together. (Politico, 8-30-17) A couple points here. If there were any crimes committed, it's likely they were done at Rump Tower..er, Trump Tower in New York City. The state of New York would also have jurisdiction over state crimes. And Dear Leader Trump can only pardon people for federal crimes. Keith Olbermann goes over the idea of Trump pardoning his way out of the Russia scandal.
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