The Internet Tubes Are Clogged – Swine Flu Edition

We haven’t had a big health scare for a while now, so this was probably inevitable. Move over Avian Flu and SARS! Swine Flu is the hip new illness on the street and everyone’s catching it! At first I naturally assumed that the Swine Flu would turn you into a Pig Person, (http://www.thepigpeople.com/ ) but when I started looking around for information it turned out that it’s more along the lines of the regular flu with slight modifications, which disappointed me to no end. I want to see werepigs damnit!

I’ve been reading up on CNN and the BBC News and I educated myself on the nature of the illness, plus when new news breaks I’ll occasionally check the WHO web site (No not Dr. Who) and the CDC. Because I’m informed I know that at this time there isn’t much to worry about so getting stressed over a nasty case of the flu won’t accomplish anything. (Seeing how I live a 15 minuet drive from the boarder to Mexico it’s nice to know what’s going on.)

Three cheers for the internet and the information revolution!

But wait. . .this article from neteffect says that the interwebs are spreading bad information about the swine flu?!?! http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/25/swine_flu_twitters_power_to_misinform Damn your black twisted heart internet, how could you do something like this to us? This wasn’t part of the deal!

In the past, (not even 10 years ago) we primarily looked to the major television networks, the radio and newspapers for researched, balanced and accurate reporting in regards to world and local events. These sources had to be reliably accurate because if they weren’t then they’d lose the trust of their customers and then they wouldn’t make any money. (And we all love money right?)

In the world we live in today any random knucklehead can say anything they want and thousands upon thousands of people all over the world will get that message in a matter of seconds. There doesn’t need to be any fact checking nor does the people need to have a credible background. People have an opinion and they post it as news on their website, blog, message board, twitter ect. Maybe they think the information they’re providing is correct, maybe they mean well or maybe they’re just spreading misinformation on purpose because they’re assholes. Who knows.

The point is that when you’re getting information from some random person there’s no way you can be sure if it’s accurate or not. Do a little Google search right now; there are people who think that the flu is come kind of biological weapon and that thousands of people are dying in the streets. If I’m on twitter and I start posting that I live near the epicenter of the outbreak and there are white vans going house to house in my neighborhood taking people away how do you know whether or not I’m telling the truth? Ya don’t! It could be true and it prays upon public fear, so it would probably be very easy to spread that rumor right now.

A real actual photo of the Swine Flu in action back during the 1976 outbreak. Here Swine Flu appears to be attacking some scaffolding in a church.

I’m not tying to pick on twitter here, it’s just that the ability to instantly deploy information plus an information hungry public plus the inherent anonymity of the internet equals one big cluster f*^&. For another example let’s look at CNN, not the stories but the comments attached to them. (A brief word on “user’s comments”. If you ever want to push yourself to suicide then go to CNN and read the users comments for a while. It’s one of the saddest places on the interwebs.) Now let’s see what people are saying about the Swine Flu!

Here’s a nice little Swine Flu FAQ with CNN’s Dr. Gupta. http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/27/cnn-answers-your-faqs-on-swine-flu/ Wow, educated, rational down to earth information! However, take a look at the comments bellow. Some of my favorites -

donna

April 27th, 2009 5:50 pm ET "The flu in 1918 was responible for the deaths of between 20 to 70 million people worldwide. That is the estimate I saw. If this flu is the same strain except it has become a variant of that virus how can this not be a crisis for the world? There is good reason to be concerned if they don’t get a handle on this quickly."

Panic much?

Hilton Mauldin

April 27th, 2009 8:27 pm ET "EUCALYPTUS OIL. Why has clinical Medicine overlooked this item. Dr. David G. Williams reported on this item in 1999. He related a personal experiience that he had on a trip to Australia. He became infected with the Flu and observed some cleaning ladies breathing fthe fumes of Eucalyptus oil on a cloth. They related a story about one s grandfather in WWI were the military sprayed a barracks with the oil and put the solders in the barracks for a day and stopped the epidemic. I have used eucalyptus oil drops and breathed the fumes to ward off colds and other respitory ills. It works. I suspect Clinical medicine is only after the $$$ to be made. Why not research the history on the properties of EUCLYPTUS OIL along with the washing of hands.

You’ve found the cure! Hurray!

Paige

April 28th, 2009 10:34 am ET "I was wondering as far as the swine flu is concerned, would it be tied to the rocket launch that N. Korea sent into the ocean last month? It just seems crazy that the majority of the infected are in the costal states, especially mexico, which is directly across from Korea. I believe that the virus seems to be man-made and could have possibly been sent into the ocean to where it would contaminate the water."

So the flu comes from the ocean which was contaminated by Kim Jong-Il’s rocket and it ended up near Mexico City. You heard it here first.

Concerned Citizen

April 28th, 2009 3:40 pm ET "Could this outbreak of swine flu in Mexico City be a failed assasination attempt by the Mexican drug cartel on President Obama’s life - using the virus-infected people as “suicide bombers” to contaminate intended targets? How can the US be sure that this is not a biological attack from a foreign country using its people as soldiers to carry out this “virus” war?"

Uh, probably not.

John Staumph

April 28th, 2009 12:23 pm ET "How was this not concocted in a laboratory someplace? You are telling me that swine, bird, and human flu mutates into one, and can harm humans, and it can occur all over the world? Wouldn’t the virus keep mutating by the time it hit Britain, Scotland, etc?"

Yes, by the time it hits the UK it’ll have probably also mutated with an umbrella, a ladder and a bowl of tapioca. Then we’ll really be in trouble. In that case I guess we’d have to change its name to the Bird-Umbrella-Ladder-Swine-Human-Tapioca virus, or BULSHT for short.

As a society we’re bombarded with an overwhelming amount of information on a daily basis. Twitter, news reports to your cell phone, text messaging, the gazillion news sites and blogs online and the many 24 hours cable news networks. We are becoming/have become addicted to information culturally ever since (in my opinion) 911. We need to know what’s happening where at all times, so when there isn’t enough information coming out in regards to a dangerous situation like swine flue, is it any wonder that people are latching onto whatever they read and excepting that as fact?

Even when presented with what facts are available people are still not satisfied. They need more information and if the information isn’t there or if it’s not the information they want to hear then they’ll make stuff up. This is normal human behavior of course, as a species we’re constantly trying to make sense out of our surroundings and filling in the gaps in our understanding of the natural world around us. But how do we distinguish between the good information and the bad information? If I make a claim that could be true and sounds true how can you tell if I’m being honest or not?

The answer is to remain skeptical at all times. When people make extraordinary claims ask for evidence. For example –

Bad info - Studies have shown that vaccinations cause autism in children!

Skeptic – Oh really? What studies? Where were they conducted at and by whom? How many studies were done and were the results consistent? Have the findings been published in a major medical journal?

Bad info – Uh, errrr, well we don’t really know if they are causing autism or not and we don’t have any real evidence, but what if it’s true?!?! It could be for all you know!

Skeptic – Oh brother. . .

Fun fact – People claim studies show that acupuncture works and they're right. . . but they don't tell you that the studies show that it's no more effective than a placebo! http://articles.latimes.com/2006/feb/06/health/he-briefly6

Be on the lookout at all times for potentially incorrect or misleading info and take everything you read or hear with a grain of salt until it can be proven. (Or as proven as much as it can be anyway.) Always do your own research and verify that something is correct and don’t just look for information that supports what you want to believe. There are too many people who want to push their agenda on you for one reason or the other. I think that if people were a little more mindful then a lot of false information and rumors could be avoided.

I don’t mean to sound cynical and say, “Trust no one!” I’m just saying to stay calm and be mindful that there’s a lot of bad information flying around, so don’t go into a panic if you aren’t exactly sure what’s going on at the moment. The Internet hates you so be careful out there!

Pete

Earth Day 2009

Today is Earth Day, a very important day for each and every one of us. On this special day, let us consider the greatest known threat to all life as we know it. Our mortal enemy – The Planet Earth.

Since the beginning of recorded history the Earth and humans have been at war with each other, most scholars agreeing that the conflict began when Benjamin Franklin discovered fire by rubbing two keys together in 1956. The Earth, sensing our species to be a threat to its survival has since tried to wipe us out at every opportunity. Being a cruel planet, The Earth relentlessly launches attack after attack upon our people and due to the fact that Earth is incapable of mercy, we must never become complacent in our struggle to destroy it.

In the summer it roasts innocent puppies in hot cars and in the winter it strikes at the elderly in their poorly heated appartments. Sometimes it will create a great storm and try to fry people with lightning. The Earth is a horrible shot, (scientists currently believe this is because the Earth has cataracts which impair its vision) and theterrible death rays rarely hit anyone. However, the Earth has more destructive tools at its disposal.

Every year the Earth takes time off from its busy schedule to launch deadly tornados at our great nation’s trailer parks. (Right after it’s jazzercise sessions on Thursday afternoons.)

Deadly tsunamis wreck havoc on our undefended coasts and hurricanes sweep inland devastating property and killing hundreds. (But only the poor people.) Even the ground we walk upon is not safe as the Earth can make it tremble, collapsing our buildings and interrupting baseball games.

But there is hope! With the human population being at such a high level today our potential to destroy the planet is better than ever! Here are some fun ideas that you can do right at home to help us to win this age old struggle. –

1. Kill a tree. Trees convert yummy-nummy carbon dioxide into nasty corrosive oxygen. If you have the necessary equipment such as a chain saw, axe or a beaver you can cut down a large sized tree, but if you cant do that just killing a sapling will help to make a big difference. (Tip - Killing saplings is something you can do with your children on an Earth Day outing!) If you are cutting down a large tree be careful because it will try to fall on you or your house in retaliation. Also, trees can uproot themselves to carry off our womenfolk, so be wary.


2. Release more pollutants into the air. With more nations industrializing we are polluting better than ever, but sadly in the United States we’ve been seriously slacking as of late. Start burning your garbage instead of throwing it away. It saves work and makes for a fun Friday evening! Take up smoking; it’s good for you and the kids will love it! Also consider starting a tire fire. Get the community involved and make Earth Day in your town into Tire Fire Day!

3. Dump hazardous chemicals into the ocean. The ocean is a forsaken realm full of misshapen monsters which will one day arise from the depths to wage war upon mankind. (As prophesied by the late Kevin Bacon.) Encourage local businesses to dump waste byproducts into the ocean to stop it before it’s too late. Also, you can help at home by going to the beach with your family to dump fertilizers into water or you can pour things like antifreeze and mercenary into your local storm drains.

These are just a few ways you can help to destroy the planet. If we all work together as a team I’m sure that one day soon the Earth will be dead and we’ll all finally be able to rest in peace. Happy Earth day!

I has a bass.

For years I’ve been thinking of getting one and learning how to play and Saturday I finally went out and bought one. I expect it will take a full year of practicing an hour each day until I don’t completely suck, but the little bit of progress I’ve made in just the past few days has me really excited. Here is a picture Les took of me being a nerd as usual.

All I can think about is getting off work so I can go home and play. (But of course at this point “playing” my bass consists of practicing coordination between my two hands, building up finger strength ect.) The creature balanced on my knee is our cat Newly, attempting to blend in with her surroundings in order hide from the bears that roam about my apartment.

Monogram Week 2009!

Prior to the 1950’s there was a handful of tiny movie studios that cranked out super low budget cheapies by the truck load for the movie hungry public. These studios were known as the “poverty row” studios. One of the most prolific of these was Monogram Pictures, which was responsible for many a b-movie, but what interests me was their horror output from the 40’s. These movies were stinkers, but many of them featured horror stars such as Bela Lugosi and George Zuco, assuring their place in classic horror history.

Since it’s Monogram Week, let’s take some time to remember some of those classic films from the little studio that could. Well, the monster movies at least.

Day One –

The Invisible Ghost (1941)

Let’s make one thing clear right off the bat – there is no invisible ghost in this movie. There’s also no ghost, nor does anyone turn invisible. So why the heck is it called the Invisible Ghost? Who knows! The title is just as confusing as the films convoluted, non-sensible plot which is as follows.

Bela Lugosi plays a kindly old man with a strange quirk; once a year he has his house staff (the guy must be pretty will off financially) prepare a dinner for both himself and his wife. Nothing strange about that except some years before poor Bela’s wife ran off with another guy and was killed in a car crash yet he still talks to her like she was there. But so what, everyone knows that mental illness is ok as long as the suffering person is happy so his daughter and her boy friend don’t worry about it much.

What Lugosi doesn’t know is that his wife is still alive, kept hidden in a shack by his grounds keeper because he couldn’t bear to have Bela see her in poor condition. This does not make sense, but it’s the movies fault and not mine, so don’t blame me. Late at night his wife wanders out from the shack and stands in front of a window for some reason.

When Bela spots her he goes into a strange trance and murders his maid in her room by strangling her to death with his robe. The image of Bela Lugosi approaching the camera which cheery music blares from the maid’s radio and removing his robe while smiling wickedly is both creepy and funny at the same time. The next morning Bela is his old charming self again and he has no idea that he committed the murder the night before.

The body is discovered and Bela’s daughter’s boyfriend is implicated, as it turns out that they had a previous relationship. (Go figure.) Despite having no evidence against him the boyfriend is sentenced to death and even Bela pleading with the governor can’t save the guy. Just after the radio reports that the guy was just gassed or fried or whatever there’s a knock at the door and it’s the boyfriend back from the dead! Well, no, it’s not! It’s his twin brother who was doing something somewhere in South America and has returned upon hearing of his brothers plight!

Yes, this is what really happens and it does not make sense.

So his daughter, her new boyfriend the twin brother of her dead boyfriend are trying to figure out who the murder is and Bela’s wife keeps appearing at the window and Bela keeps zoning out and strangling people. Why is Bela Lugosi strangling people you may ask? Does Bela’s wife hypnotize him? When he see’s her does he just flip out and get homicidal on his house staff? Was the script writer on drugs? Who knows?! Sometimes things just happen and we have to learn to accept them. Like hurricanes and the Jonas Brothers movie.

The Invisible Ghost is an incoherent mess but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Bela Lugosi is always a hoot and it’s cool to see him play a role where he’s not a vampire or mad scientist for once. If it wasn’t for him the movie would have been a drag. The absurdity of the story and ridicules dialogue adds a fun comedic element to the films proceedings and some decent shots and camera angles keep the visuals fresh. (Well, for a poverty row film anyway.)

Let’s see how this movie measures up on the Poverty Row Scale!

Is it a horror movie? - +1
Does it have a monster in it? - +1 (Bela counts as a monster imo.)
Is Bela Lugosi in it? - +1
Does it feature a ridicules plot? - +1
Does the film have moments where it’s actually effective? - +1

Hay! A perfect five out of five. I highly recommend this bizarre little film, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Shut the up about the Mayan end of the world plz

Well, it's been awhile since the millennium came and went without the world ending, so now screwball conspiracy theorists and hack writers looking to cash in on other peoples paranoia have latched onto the supposed Mayan apocalypse which is apparently going to happen sometime in 2012.


Oh noes! The Mayans predicted the Muppet's! ZOMG it's all coming truuuuue!!11Elventyone+1!

Of course this is silly and not based on any sort of testable evidence or logic. People keep making baseless claims that the world is going to end and every single time they're wrong. After 2012 comes and goes there will be yet another crack pot doomsday scenario for gullible people to freak out about, just like what happened before -

Jesus and Paul thought the gig was up some time during the 1st century CE http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl16.htm

Multiple failed prophesies http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl2.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl12.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl4.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl9.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl10.htm

There's too many to list. Just go here for a great collection of past failed predictions plus some more predictions that will fail in the future. http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrld.htm

End of the world rumors prey upon peoples natural inclination towards superstitious beliefs, a byproduct of our own evolutionary survival mechanisms. Once these predictions are brought out into the light and it becomes apparent that they are not based on any real world testable evidence or quantifiable data it's easy to dismiss them for what they are - big steaming piles of fail.

Free MMO Hell Part One – Mythwar II

Why do I keep doing this to myself? I see a free MMO and before I can stop myself I'm downloading it, even though I know that I'm only going to play it for about five minuets before I purge it from my computer in disgust. But then, why does a man climb a mountain? Because it's there, and because he's stupid of course.

And so here I am again, about to subjugate myself to another round of pain and suffering. This time I had a light bulb go off in my head, and then it promptly burnt out because I was using the wrong wattage again. I'll write about the multitude of horrors I experience while running around in free-to-play mmo's so that you too can share in my suffering because hay; nothing helps ease my unbearable pain quite like spreading it around. So without further adieu, I present part one of Free MMO Hell.

Mythwar II - http://mw2.igg.com/

Wow, I picked a real stinker for my first entry. Mythwar II (MW2) is an unplayable piece of crap unleashed upon the world by free mmo peddlers and baby killers IGG. After picking a generic RPG stereotype character to serve as my avatar I was immediately dismayed to discover that the game was played in a 2D, Diablo style viewpoint with a click-to-move interface. After speaking with the noob welcome character, a woman riding a flying bird, I proceeded wandering around aimlessly and picking up all the miscellaneous crap that was strewn about the ground everywhere. (Not at all unlike what I do in real life.)


I was surprised to discover that combat was initiated randomly while moving around the map, sort of like a Japanese RPG. (Final Fantasy 1, 2, 3, 45,824, ect.) In fact, combat is conducted from a static side view with an action timer like an old school JRPG as well, except that in this case its mind-numbingly dull and bereft of even the slightest element of strategy.

It took me a moment to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do as the game never gave me any kind of instruction how to defend myself, but basically all you do is select an ability to use, click on a target and then your character will preform the same action over and over again until you tell him to do something else or your target is destroyed. The fact that a magical blob thing appeared out of nowhere only to insult me didn't help matters.


I have a high end system but for some reason the game was running choppy on my computer and the interface was so horrible that I didn't bother chatting with anyone. I mean, why would I want to? What sort of sick, twisted fiend would play a game like Mythwar II for fun? It boggles my mind that people could actually log on to this game daily and enjoy themselves when there are plenty of other unbearably bad free mmo's out there that somehow still manage to be vastly superior to this one. I mean crap.

Oh, then after killing things for a while I got dead.


Well, unsure of how to wrap things up I ran into a familiar friend who offered me two choices, but we both knew there was only one that made any sense.


I deleted my short lived character and after I finish typing up this article I'm going to cast Mythwar II back into the bowls of the internet from which it sprang; bloody, mewing and oozing greenish puss.

So there you have it. There's bad free to play mmo's out there, and then there's games like MW2 that somehow manage to bend reality to achieve a whole new level of suck previously before unseen in the mortal realm. God, I need a shower.

One internets out of 10

An Obituary for VHS Tapes

As some of you may have heard, the last VHS tape was recently produced, and an era has officially come to a close. Before VHS (and it's arch nemesis Beta) the only way to watch a movie from the comfort of your home was to catch it on TV, or maybe 16mm/8mm film if you had a projector. But lo, the Gods of Passive Entertainment saw that their children were unhappy, and so they bestowed upon us the VHS Cassette Tape so that we might watch “Zombie Nightmare” over and over again until our tiny brains were reduced to pasty gray mush.

Suddenly you could just head out to the neighborhood video store, pick up a pizza on the way home and viola – you could watch the movie on your TV without someone annoying kid kicking the back of your seat. (Unless you had kids, but you could just lock them up in the crawlspace for an hour and a half I suppose.)

There was a problem however; there were very few movies available at first. Where there's demand there's always some big fat guy in Bermuda shorts (don't ask me why he's a big fat guy, he just is) waiting to capitalize on the opportunity. Small, fly by night video distribution companies sprang up almost overnight, putting any movie onto VHS they could get their hands on, regardless of the films quality. Bizarre, poorly dubbed foreign films , bad action movies and no budget direct to video films that should have never been viewed by anyone filled row upon row of shelf space at hasty assembled movie rental stores.

Of course, if people knew how painfully bad some of those movie were they would never have rented them! Therefore it was in the distribution companies best interest to pay a guy to paint an awesome cover for it. That way people would think they were getting when they were really getting this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF-fcz4DlSg

There was all kinds of kick ass box art. Take this one for example -
When I first saw this I was six years old I convinced that it was the coolest movie ever made. Of course my Mom would never rent it, and my dream of watching Night of Horror went unfulfilled until about three months ago when I saw an old used copy for sale at Kensington Video. (Best video rental store in San Diego without a doubt.)

I bought it for about a buck and raced home, sure that I had rediscovered a lost classic of horror cinema. I gloated over my discovery to my wife, (who somehow manages to tolerate my bad movie obsession) put it into the VCR and prepared myself for the rapture that only a crappy monster movie can bring.

But there was no monster.

Instead I was subjugated to 76 minuets of dull torture. I went to my “happy place” for most of the movie but sometimes when I close my eyes I see flashes of some long haired teenagers sitting at a “bar” which is obviously in their parents basement. I see a poorly shot Civil War reenactment, and hear a droning narration and some sort of terrible country rock song that never ends. No awesome VHS cover zombie ever appears to save the film.

This is a good example of the power of VHS box art. 20 years later and I bought the film simply based on its cover. Imagine how important the box art was back in the 80's/early 90's when people had no clue as to what the hell they were renting. For more art, I recommend you check out this site - http://www.critcononline.com/video_compa...er_art.htm You might remember seeing some of those boxes up on the rental shelf and there's a lot of good info about the distribution companies there also. (If your a nerd and curious about that sort of thing.)

All good things had to come to an end of course. Once the major labels saw how much money the little guys were making they pushed harder to get their larger budget, mainstream films onto VHS. The bad movies were pushed of the shelf to make way for the good ones (well, arguably good) and the world moved on without “A Bell From Hell” and “ I dismember Mama.” And then came the DVD format; no more rewinding, tracking problems and what have you, and you know the rest of the story.

We owe a lot to VHS. It sparked our obsession with the home theater experience and gave new life to movies that otherwise would have otherwise vanished into obscurity. Rest in peace. Especially Night of Horror. Screw that movie.