Okay, so I decided to splurge a little on a couple video games . . . for my SNES. I thought maybe it was time to pick up some of my favorites that a) I use to have and loaned to a friend and never saw again b) a friend had and I loved or c) I’ve never had and only played on emulators. My #1 game in that regard was Uniracers, which is a fast, fun and unique racing game.

Anyway, I ended up purchasing a few more games than I originally was planning on picking up, but combined shipping is a beautiful thing. And I’ll just chalk the splurge up to the sale of my TV. They pan out to about the same cost. So, for those who care, which will probably be slim to none, I picked up: F-Zero (unopened, I completely stole this auction), Super R-Type, Uniracers, Super Castlevania 4, NBA Jam, Aladdin and Stunt Racer FX. All games I’ve played and loved and damn near impossible to find in a store used. Thanks internets!!!!!

In other news, here are two pictures that just make me laugh.

I really, really hope that second one is fake.

We all know about the breast cancer site where you click once a day and they make a donation, well, here you can play a word game and free rice will be donated. I kid you not. Snopes says it is true. Good enough for me.

Check it out here: Free Rice

I’m sick of hearing about how Hollywood is out of ideas. They aren’t. That’s not why you have so many sequels, remakes of older films and nostalgic revivals of older media (see: Transformers). It isn’t because writers are lazy and out of ideas. If that were true, no new books would ever be published. There are always more ideas, it’s just that the movie companies don’t want to take a chance on your unique idea.

Why? Simple. Name recognition. Never heard of The Darjeeling Limited? But you’ve definitely heard of oh, any novel written by Jane Austen. Simply by making a movie that has name recognition, you are more likely to draw in a crowd, even if the only people filling the theaters are fans of the original/book/first ten movies/original trilogy/whatever.

Granted, Juno was up for a couple of Oscars and it was an indie film and a comedy, but I am still a little shocked that the Academy even nominated the film. Sure, I enjoyed the film and perhaps the Academy is looking for some more street cred, but was it a Gone With The Wind experience? Not in the least. So, for the Academy to nominate Juno seems almost like they were simply trying to fill an empty spot in their five-movie nomination schema, but couldn’t decide upon the fifth spot because there were too many “not-going-to-win, but damned-if-it-wasn’t-Oscar-nom-with-enough-sappiness-worthy”. Harry Potter would’ve made just as much sense.

Music. The same can be said. Let’s start with the Grammy’s. How many has Madonna been up for? How many has Death Cab For Cutie been up for? And why isn’t Death Cab up for more even though they’ve written just as many great songs as Madonna? Simple, name recognition . . . but of a different sort. For a Grammy you must be a) a prior winner and/or b) a current popular, maintream-ish artist. Who won the Best New Artist last year? Paramore, I believe. Now I don’t have anything against Paramore, but there are much more deserving bands out there, but those bands didn’t make it big on MTV. Most not-nominated-but-way-better-bands/artists didn’t crack the top 50 on the Billboard charts, whereas Madonna is primed to sell millions of records even if it sucks (see: Michael Jackson’s career in the past decade).

Now, this turned into a rant more about awards than the industry, but the award shows just typify what the business already does. They put forth movies and artists who sell. And subsequently, they only fund artists and movies that are more or less guaranteed to sell. Yes, it’s a smart and safe model, but don’t complain to me about piracy or that there is a lack of ideas. They’re companies. They’re in it for the money. Case and point. To delude yourself otherwise is, well, delusional.

So, rent indie films. Go see indie bands. Hell, steal their stuff online so you can fall in love with them and then go out and support them.  All the cries of “the sky is falling” and the “end of the movie/music industry” is a perpetuation of an outdated model of business. The quality of music and movies have not suffered over the years, in fact, I would argue that with each passing year that both art forms are growing. You just have to dig a little to find them . . . and stop listening to the media and the companies who are crying about their diminishing profit margins, which in no way correlates to the decline in releases they put out. No, that just wouldn’t make sense.

Here’s a thought. One I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking on, but interesting nonetheless.

We in the West are not as “concerned” with demons and jinn, but instead with aliens who come from outer space in their ships. This is an interesting development because 1) outer space is far different from inner space (where, presumably, demons attack) and 2) intangible wisps of air no longer trick us, but carbon-based lifeforms that come from outside of the planet (our unexplored space) and use their technology or science to overpower us.

Now tell me, how engulfed in our ways and means of thinking are we that it takes someone else (in this case, me) to tell you why our ancestor’s didn’t write about crop circles and abductions?

Or it could be that the swan wasn’t Zeus, but an alien in a spaceship and only now we are seeing the truth.

Oh, and I didn’t come up with this. So I too needed it pointed out to me. Granted, I haven’t spent all that much time in thought concerning the “alien” meme, but you may have and could consider this to be blatantly obvious so please accept my apology for wasting your time.