The North American video game crash of 1983
(It's not such a random article, as I found myself researching things about videogames today for a little project for myself that may amount to nothing, since I don't have reliable computer access except at work.)
This space left intentionally blank.
Showing posts with label Wikipedia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wikipedia. Show all posts
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Your random Wikipedia article for the day
Friday, January 23, 2009
Kick-Ass: The worst comic book ever printed?
And in a world where "All Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder" continues to see print, that’s saying a lot.
Two things will forever make me very suspicious of picking up a comic book, from this moment forward:
1 – When I learn that a comic is in the works as a film, one month after the first issue is released; there’s something disingenuous when a comic is created seemingly for nothing more than to cash in on Hollywood’s growing interest in all things four color; and,
2 – When Mark Millar is one of the creators; remember the last page of "Wanted" ("And this is my face, while I’m fucking you in the ass")? Yeah, what if the movie had ended with that?
I picked up issue 5 of "Kick-Ass" the other day, and it will be the last issue of this wretched story that I pick up. I probably won’t bother with the film when that comes out, either, much like I didn’t bother with "Wanted." This story, this writing, this concept is so atrociously bad and poorly developed, I openly weep for the future of comics as a medium, that this thing is consistently a top seller with each issue released.
I share with you now the official synopsis from Marvel Comics of this title’s first issue, so we have some perspective of what we’re about to discuss:
COVER BY: JOHN ROMITA JR.
WRITER: MARK MILLAR
PENCILS: JOHN ROMITA JR.
THE STORY:
"The greatest super hero comic of all-time is finally here. WOLVERINE: ENEMY OF THE STATE's team of MARK MILLAR (CIVIL WAR) and JOHN ROMITA JR. (WORLD WAR HULK) reunite for the best new book of the 21st century. Have you ever wanted to be a super hero? Dreamed of donning a mask and just heading outside to some kick-ass? Well, this is the book for you--the comic that starts where other super hero books draw the line. KICK-ASS is realistic super heroes taken to the next level. Miss out and you're an idiot!"
Okay. This is not "the greatest super hero comic of all-time (sic)". I’ve never dreamed of "heading outside to some kick-ass" (sic). I appreciate that the concept is to visualize a superhero paradigm in a realistic setting, but ... well, we’ll get there. And trust me, if you miss out on this comic, you’re far from being an idiot.
Issue one introduces us to Dave Lizewski, a fifteen year old who dorks out over comics, science fiction, horror, and the like. We get to see his geek life, his geek dad, his geek friends, his geek school, and his geek dreams that superheroes should be a reality. While his friends balk at this idea, Dave takes it upon himself to see this done. With no training, a strong sense of smug assuredness in his mission, and a diver’s wetsuit, he patrols the streets and happens upon his first crime. Expectedly, he fucks up, and gets fucked up; his first attempt at stopping a crime ends with him stabbed and run over by a car driven by some of his female classmates.
Issue two starts with lil’ Dave in the hospital; he attributes his broken body to a mugging. He receives treatment for his wounds the likes of which couldn’t possibly be covered by his skid row dad’s insurance. Then, a few weeks later(!), when he leaves the hospital and convalesces into full recovery(!!), he goes back to fighting criminals with two batons(!!!), pepper spray(!!!!), and his ongoing sense of judgmental self-righteousness. Even better, he appears to suffer no lingering after effects of his horrendous injuries, which include but aren’t limited to broken bones, a collapsed lung, and a smashed skull.
Issue three meanders along, with the newly dubbed “Kick-Ass” (sigh) offering his crime-fighting services to anyone in need; he does this by keeping a MySpace account – I shit you not! – open for people to reach him. If the A-Team had this kind of set-up, they’d ... well, they’d have been captured within days, instead of successfully eluding military police for five seasons.
Kick-Ass answers a request from a woman who is sick of her boyfriend whuppin’ dat azz on the regular; Mr. Ass in turn seeks him out and confronts him at his apartment. Boyfriend don’t like this, so he, his homeboys, and his homegirls go to work decimating Kick-Ass.
And here’s where the problem begins. We are introduced to Hit Girl, a presumably eight year old girl, wielding twin samurai swords like a ninjitsu champ, and calling people "motherfuckers" while she lops off skullcaps and eviscerates major organs, all with an impish smile while she's drenched in blood and innards that are now outtards. Did I mention that this character looks like she's eight?
Issue four is more of a low key issue, as Kick-Ass officially meets Hit Girl and her partner, Big Daddy – hm, could they possibly be a father-daughter duo? Is Millar seriously setting this up as a mystery? – and while he’s left pondering the conflicts between his superhero job and his high school life, the “Mob” (sure, why not, since we’ve suspended disbelief this far?) are zeroing in on targeting Kick-Ass for ... something that’s not quite clear, since Kick-Ass has done nothing to this point that would be construed as being heroic, nor having done any significant damage to ne’er-do-wells in his community, much less having interrupted any "Mob" proceedings.
Issue five begins very awkwardly; it felt like I had missed a few issues, until I realized that several weeks have passed in the story, a point alluded to in a very small sentence. Apparently, over the course of this sentence, a hero named Red Mist has taken cue from Kick-Ass and become a vigilante too, and has eeked out quite the career of it, too. Their paths cross, they realize that they have a lot in common (Red Mist plays Danny Elfman while on patrol ... Jesus Christ!), and they have a “team-up.” However, this goes to shit quickly when they happen upon a tenement fire, and they rush in to save an overweight cat in a hamster cage … true story, swear to god! And when Kick-Ass escapes within an inch of his life, we are met with the fantastic crime-fighting duo of Hit Girl and Big Daddy.
And this is the point that I’ve just lost all interest in this book, its story, its characters, its direction, and anything having to do with it. In fact, that this title exists, along with all the goodwill that was decimated by the Secret Invasion storyline (a multipart megacrossover event spun out of a multipart megacrossover event, that ends with … the start of a multipart megacrossover event), has me crossing off ALL Marvel titles on my hold list at Planet Comics.
Millar is supposed to be some kind of special among these new gods of comics writing, right up there with Ennis, Ellis, Morrison, and the like. A nip around Wikipedia to scope out other works of Millar uncover only “Civil War,” “The Authority,” and “Superman: Red Son” as notable, among a list of random fill-ins for storylines or ongoing stints on titles that ultimately end up as poof. I mean, "Trouble?" Really? ”Trouble?”
I’ve come to believe, and I base this on the high sales of “Kick-Ass,” that comics have become the printed equivalent of movies. That is, apparently you can put anything out there, and regardless of the critical response, someone is likely to pay money to be exposed to it. Wasn’t it "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" that knocked "Dark Knight Returns" from the #1 box office spot it had held for several weeks?
Congratulations, Mark Millar, you have, like your "Wanted" protagonist, fucked me in the ass again, this time to the tune of five issues. But no more, and if I can do anything to steer people further away from this shitty tripe that passes for sequential graphic entertainment – which really only fits two of those three descriptors in that it is graphics laid out in a sequential format ... but it’s far from entertaining – then I’m probably guaranteeing myself a seat in Paradise.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Joey Styles: Great Announcer or Greatest Announcer?
As I mentioned in the reply to Nate's DVD post, I had to Wiki the 1991 BattleBowl because I couldn't recall what it was. As always happens with Wikipedia, you start clicking on links and suddenly you find yourself reading about Gold-Bond Medicated Powder which is completely inexplicable because the original article you searched for was the Atari 5200. Somehow I made my way from Battlebowl 1991 to the World Bodybuilding Federation to WWE New York to XFL to Joey Styles, where I found a link to this interesting article.One of the most newsworthy events that transpired on World Wrestling Entertainment's tour of Iraq last week took place nowhere near any of the cameras that were filming the tour. I was stunned at hearing the following story over the weekend and initially chalked it up to being just an urban legend, but as it turns out, it was completely accurate.
...
As the story was initially explained to me (and all versions I've heard since have matched the original report I was conveyed), JBL made [Joey] Styles something of a target because it was Styles' first tour of Iraq for the company and was hazing the former ECW announcer.
...
Several days into the tour, JBL (who by all accounts, had been drinking) did something that caused Styles to physically retaliate in defense. A number of wrestlers stepped between them and held the two apart. When JBL broke free, he went towards Styles, who "nailed him perfectly with a pretty good shot" according to one witness, laying JBL out, busting him open and blackening his eye.
Little Joey Styles knocked JBL the fuck out. That is the finest wrestling-related story I've heard in quite some time. It couldn't have happened to a more-deserving jerkass or been done by anyone more appropriate unless Steve Austin whipped Hulk Hogan's ass.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Monday, January 15, 2007
More Wiki-Comedy
Go read the page for Brian Adams (Wrestler). Go into the history, and look at the last page before it was edited by Deedc. Someone, somewhere, has decided to up the ante on my Brian Adams comedy.
Move along, there is nothing else to see here.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Another thing to think about while doing your year end awards
Let's have another contest. Who can come up with the best definition of....
Wikipedia.
Mine is "An internet site written by computer geeks who think they own knowledge."
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Why Wikipedia Sucks reason number 3,465,789
Go to Wikipedia. Go to the page for Kingsport, Tennessee, and look at the history page. Look at what I have had to go through to get Tom Bettini (former bassist of Jackyl) and Edward L. Ayers (Bancroft-prize winning historian and 9th president of the university of Richmond) listed as residents of Kingsport. I swear, I thought democratizing knowledge was to share knowledge, not to make people jump through hoops to post common facts.
[Type rest of the post here]
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Wikipedia rules!
For those of you who are gay and don't follow college football this may not make a lot of sense to you, but as the communal editing practices of Wikipedia has been a subject of discussion previously here at Scienticians Gone Maniacal, I thought I'd toss this out with an explanation. One of the components of the BCS system used to rank college football teams for the purpose of determining who will play in the Nat'l Championship game is the Harris Interactive Poll, voted on by a number of people of varying relationships to college football, ranging from former coaches and players to avid viewers. With Ohio State being the lone undefeated team from a major conference and solidly ranked first, the second spot was going to either Michigan or Florida, depending on the final voting Sunday. In order to boost Florida's position in the Harris Interactive Poll, and therefore the BCS standings, voter Jim Walden ranked Florida first (12-1, lucky the SEC sucked this year) ahead of Ohio State (12-0, will kill Florida and pee on their corpses), being the only voter in the three major polls (AP, Coaches, Harris) to give Florida a first-place vote.
Walden, being a former head coach at Washington State and Iowa State, has just enough notability to warrant a Wikipedia entry, created in September of 2006 and finalized in November:
"Jim Walden (born ca. 1938 in Aberdeen, Mississippi) was the head football coach at Washington State University from 1978 to 1986. During his tenure there, he compiled a 44-52-4 record. At Washington State, he coached the 1981 team to the school's first bowl appearance in 51 years. At one point he had also won three of the last five Apple Cups against the University of Washington. In 1981, he also earned the title of Pac Ten Coach of the Year. He also served as the head coach at Iowa State University where he compiled a 28-57-3 record. Since retiring from Iowa State, Walden served as a radio color commentator, first for the Iowa Barnstormers of Arena Football and later for Washington State football. He still hosts a Sunday evening radio show in Iowa on WHO called 'Two Guys Named Jim.'"
Within hours of national recognition for his decision to rank Florida ahead of Ohio State, people with far more free time on their hands than I have (which is saying a lot) went to work on Walden's Wikipedia entry. An anonymous contributor added this:
"He must die for picking Florida 1st.
Kill him Kill Him Kill Him"
Two minutes later, the vandalism was removed. Four minutes after the correction, this appeared:
"Somehow, this idiot thought it was a good idea to vote a 1 loss Florida team over an undefeated Ohio State team in an attempt to get Flordia into the national championship game. The old Southern coot got his wish, as he screwed over Michigan."
Over the next 20 hours, over 100 edits and revisions would occur before the entry was finally locked. Some highlights:
"Being born in Mississippi accounts for him being retarded." Truly.
"Jim Walden is actually an insane old coot, possibly even older and cootier than Ted Stevens." Cootier? Awesome.
He still hosts a Sunday evening radio show in Iowa on WHO called "Two Guys Named Jim," or what some may call "One Guy Named Jim and One Guy Named Urban Meyer's Bitch!" An alternate title was suggested as "Two Guys Named Mo and Ron."
"Jim Walden is a good man with a mind for rational thought. He realizes that the SEC is tougher than the Little-10. Michigan fans are like double-pronged dildos." I don't know how Michigan fans are like double-pronged dildos. I'm not going to try to figure it out, either.
Mr. Walden most likely sits down to go number one and two. In fact, when arranging his final Harris poll ballot, Mr/s Walden inexplicably tucked his genitals between his legs as if to say, "Hey, look at me, now my man boobs don't look so out of place! Did I mention I hate Michigan?" That's...fucked up.
You can see the entire history here, although most of the other edits are just reposting the same changes which were quickly reverted to the original entry.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Hey, since Wikipedia is such a trustworthy source for accurate information ...
Dateline: Washington - The U.S. intelligence community Tuesday unveiled its own secretive version of Wikipedia, saying the popular online encyclopedia format known for its openness is key to the future of American espionage.[more]
... as we continue to come closer and closer to being a 3rd world country.
I guess a better joke would be to make some remark that this is coming from the "U.S. intelligence community," but I think that would be redundant.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Remember what I thought about Wikipedia?
The Onion agrees.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/50902
Read it. It's funny.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Technology Ruins Your Mind
I want to use this wonderful forum and gripe a bit about something that has been bothering me for a while. As some of the core readers of SGM know, I regularly teach American history to college undergraduates. Because I am a firm believer in communication and critical thinking skills, my students have to write a number of short papers over the course of the term. Here recently, the kids have began to turn to Wikipedia as one of their top sources for background information or quotations (all of my paper topics are derived from a book, so the Internet is not their primary source base). Although I am trying to break them of this habit, most kids have come to see this as a reliable fountain of information. That, on a number of levels, is sad.
You see, Wikipedia is a digital pissing contest. It is nothing more than the opinion of who is the last person to view the page and press edit. It is about as reliable as a Commodore Vic-20, complete with casette drive. Don't believe me? Go to Wikipedia, click on ANY article, and then click history. The reversions that people do are astounding. The "revert wars" that go on would be funny if they weren't so sad.
The current example is the page for the new ECW. As we all know from "that other site," the core readership of SGM HATED last night's ECW debut show. You wouldn't know that from the wikipedia entry, though, as some guy with the handle JFred has edited out every opinion on the show that has been posted. This includes links to the feedback page on 1wrestling.com, a statement that "Paul Heyman himself did not like how the show turned out," and numerous remarks saying that "hardcore fans were disappointed." I'm almost afraid to put up what changes that I have done for fear that JFred will see this site and remove them. A number of his comments (yes, you can comment on the changes you make) say "revert, not needed" or "revert, that detail not needed."
Who the hell is JFred to tell us what is needed? That is why Wikipedia sucks. Wikipedia does not allow for "open-source knowledge," it lets anyone censor the opinion of anyone else as many times as they want. On a blog or on a message board, you post your thoughts and they stay up as long as you or the Admin (i.e. the Iron Fist of Justice) allows it. Generally, those authority figures are limited and have set guidelings. In Wikipedia, any user can change anything at anytime. This means that the discourse has no way of ever solidifying into something that can be known. There is no permanent information. Sure, you can argue that no information is ever permanent, but to change something in, say, the discipline of history you have to do research, publish your findings in either a peer-reviewed journal or manuscript, and then go through a few years of debate before something is commonly accepted. With Wikipedia, if JFred doesn't like you talking bad about Vince McMahon, your shit goes away right there. No debate, no discourse...poof its gone. Thousands of gatekeepers can not be good.
Right now, the ECW entry ends with the line "while completely panned by fans and critics, received a relatively strong 2.7 rating." I guarantee you that by the time you read this, the 2.7 rating will still be there, but the panned by fans line will be gone. Apparently, that is a "point of view." You can't have a point of view on wikipedia, you have to give them "just the facts." Now if that isn't the dumbest thing. Knowledge is interpretation. It isn't a bunch of dates and names thrown together, unless you are in an 8th Grade social studies class. Wikipedia is knowledge for Middle-schoolers and the technogeeks think it is the greatest invention since honey mustard came in a squeeze bottle. I never thought that when technogeeks used the internet for something other than porn, things could get this dangerously close to the edge of total disaster for the fundamental practices of mankind.
If people are on here controlling the knowledge regarding a pro-wrestling show, what are they doing to important things? If you go to the Christianity page, there is currently a pissing contest....er....debate over whether or not Christianity is a mono-theistic religion. That would be funny if it just wasn't so sad. We can't say that ECW sucks, but we can debate whether Christianity has more than one God. (Although it was kinda funny when someone said that followers of Jesus were called "home-g's," but I digress....) Well, the debate is limited to single lines inside of reverts and a few broader comments on the "Talk page."
This is just dangerous. Absolutely, positively dangerous.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
