As the Holidays Approach...

I found this cartoon on Cagle and found it fitting for the holidays. Yesterday, a friend of mine(who was really drunk) wanted to try and sit on Santa Clause's lap at a mall out here in DC to wish for a championship for Marquette this year - after we lost against Wisconsin.

In line, we met a pair of kids who wanted to sit on Santas lap. One child who was probably around 8, wanted an Xbox 360. His mom though, asked him before he waited in line for santa, if he really wanted to do so and whether or not he really still believed in santa. "Aren't you a little old for him?" she asked, in what seemed like an attempt to push the child away from him.

It was obvious money was an issue, and it was obvious the child wanted what he did. Seeing this made me rather sad as I thought no longer had decent gifts and the thought that went in to them dominate. Electronics are becoming like water now, and more expensive than ever. Kids want them more and more as advertising infiltrates the house - demanding kids beg their stressed parents for them. If the TV is off, the messages will still come in - through friends who use their pressure, not knowing who is really pressuring them to do pressuring.

What about a book for the holidays? Even better, what about a book on excessive consumerism? For those younger than us, what about an educational game?


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Major Corporation: -1 Counter-Culture: +1

I recently came across this great article in wired news which documents an attempt by the media giant Sony, to do guerilla advertising and successfully turn it in their direction.

Needless to say Sony, you have failed.

In this case, trying to reinvent the wheel is a disaster for you Sony. You have jumped on board instead, to the counter-culture ride and now you will pay. As your billboards continue to be graffitied over due to the fact that you are impeding on the only form of expression some in the city have - you will see your profits fall. You will see your measily handheld games dropped in the cracks of society, and destroyed, deficated upon, and spit back out as a glorifying victory for many in the counter-culture world.

It is a shame your expensive advertising executives could not have told you of the new resurgence in society taking place right now: the march to take back the streets. The napalm of the Billboard Liberation Front is working, and if you fight it, you will merely fuel the flames more. What can you do now? How can you fight a cause which is not limited by the very laws you pay lawyers thousands of dollars per minute to uphold in your favor, who are masters of dancing around technicalities and sheer overpowerment? You fight the under-culture on two fronts - in the streets, and in the world of the net - where your corporate culture dares not roam too far away from the mainstream sites. How can you fight a cause which has no political voice - but rather - a cultural voice, willing to pop up at midnight and destroy your tactless ads and self indulgent capitalist greed? The voice comes back another night, and another, as you have provide the resounding voice of the real counter-culture with an indefinate amount of options the more you fight it. Meanwhile, in another realm, the downloader, continues to steal your overpriced food - that you try to hoard and control.

Add this to an already failed campaign to distribute virus infected cds to millions of buyers, and your "street cred" is failing miserably.

Sony, just admit nobody wants to buy your pointless handheld gaming systems just like nobody wanted to buy your useless - remarketed - old version of PS One which paled in comparison and yet was almost as expensive of a PS Two system.

Your professional advertisers are failing, and you are finding yourself up against a wall as your developers so far are unable to unleash anything good. Add this to the fact that X-Box has managed to release a stellar console before you and the pressure has increased. Add the fact that many are converting to the X-Box simply because of the good graphics despite the fact that many of these converts used to resist the temptations of X-Box due to big microsoft sentiments and the fact that games were so expensive.

Did you predict this trend? Did you think your rebellious users would convert to better quality?

The fact of the matter is: society is uncontrollable and there aren't any set rules in the long run. Your iteritive strategy of message announcement will fail. Art, culture, and life cannot be held down by your rules in the long run, when your rules are made to benefit yourself. Therefore, rather than trying to control society with your messages - how about actually creating something that people will enjoy?

Isn't this the goal, capitalism was intended to accomplish originally?


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Only for the hipsters

Well, I realize this post will probably degrade the rest of this blog for as long as it remains in the recent post list... but this is a hit I'm willing to take in order to present you, the elite listener, with some high quality music such as:


Building a Hystimine
Glucose, Glucose


ahh... so much great music. More can be found here.
There is also an online database of over 2,000 of these, located here.

This was originally posted on the wired news service, (yes, the service only the 'cool' people subscribe to) but I couldn't resist putting it here as it is such great music...

I don't know about all of you, but I plan on listening to this great music all day...

There is a question though that this raises. Is it sad that pop culture has to be disseminated down to such a ridiculous level in order to incorperate science with culture - and basic science at that? Personally, I think such questions are obviously ridiculous as said music is of the highest quality, so I guess I can't answer this question. So what if people tend to laugh or be drunk when they listen to this music? I don't see why they do such a thing, but hey, it's a free country, so if other people want to laugh and be drunk - that is their right. THIS IS AMERICA!

Anyways, I plan on listening to this music daily in order to learn all I need to about science and get my daily dose of good music. If you want to be cool, this is what you must do also.

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