Tweet of the Year: A Cracked 64 ripoff

The beginning of the year is the time to look back on what has just passed us by - through Top of the Year lists.  While many will be publishing their lists of the best of 2012, I'm more interested in what happens over at Cracked; they try to identify what typified the year that was.  This is, to me, far more interesting, and so, I will be offering my take on the same 8 categories that Cracked's columnists wrote on.

If you missed yesterday's post, I wrote about the Movie of the Year.

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Tweet of the Year: Syria Turns Off the Internet

The unrest in the Middle East was one of the biggest stories of the year, and Twitter was at the forefront of the conflicts.  Twitter, in essence, tore down the wall that existed between the government and the public; acting as a way to organize protests as well as delivering news to the rest of the world that may have otherwise not been made public.

I really do believe that Twitter is the way of the future for journalism - not only world politics, but sports and local news as well; there now exists an onus on journalists to communicate with their audience.  And that's fantastic.

While Cloudflare (and the accompanying article) is not the definitive Twitter account of 2012, when the Syrian government turned off all Internet connections as a response to the revolters, it summed up how prominent of a role social media has played in the conflicts.

Runner Up: 

This has nothing to do with 2012, or the article, I just wanted to plug the fact that I now have Twitter, and it's all about funny things I hear at school.  Give it a follow.

Movie of the Year: A Cracked 64 ripoff

During the end of December and the beginning of January, there are hundreds of Top [insert number] of [insert year] lists published.  Here are the top four:

4) List-based articles are easy to consume.

3) They allow an audience a chance to catch up on something they've missed.

2) It's fun (?) to judge the quality of the list or to dispute entries.

1) They're a narrative crutch.  

Nothing new needs to brought to the table; with hindsight being 20/20, compiling a list of the best movies, songs, and television from the past year is journalistically easier than writing about what is happening in the present.

I love this time of year for the lists that are published; they're a great read to me.  In addition, what I said about being a narrative crutch also appeals to me this year because, when you're attempting to write a post per day, sometimes it's nice to not have to bring any new material to the table, and to instead retread what happened in 2012.  Like I said, I enjoy "Best of" lists, but for the past two years, there has been a list that is exponentially more interesting to me.  I am speaking of the Cracked 64.

This is #1 in my "Top  Top Lists of 2012" list.

The premise is to select, from 8 different categories, not the best or worst entry, but the one that most typified the year; the most appropriate of 2012.  To quote from Cracked.com, "These picks may not be the best the year had to offer, but they’re the movies, tweets and everything else that 2012 deserves."

If you haven't already read this, then you really should go check it out.  To me, this is far more interesting than compiling a list of the best 2012 had, and as such, I'm going to be offering my take on the eight categories that Cracked wrote on.  If you happen to disagree, feel free to offer your own pick, along with an explanation, in the comments.  Today, we shall be tackling movies.

Movie of the Year: The Avengers

For movies, 2012 was a year all about franchises.  The highest grossing movie that didn't already belong to its own franchise was Brave, which ranked 8th in domestic grosses.  But 2012 is not a year that will be defined solely in terms of which movies made the most money; this was the year that Star Wars was sold to Disney (the same umbrella that The Avengers falls under), and it was announced that three new movies will be made; the same year that the first of three - that's right, three! - Hobbit movies was released; the year that a Justice League movie was announced.  The Avengers exemplifies the trend in cinema of 2012, and it also does it the best.

The Avengers is both the first, and the seventh installment of the series; taking Marvel's Captain America, Thor, Hulk, and Iron Man franchises, and making a super-movie (no pun intended) that would have seemed an impossible notion a decade ago.  In a year that was all about franchises, Disney, Marvel, and Joss Whedon released a movie that was the result of years of patience; no small feat in today's climate.  Look no further than the announcement about the Justice League movie for an example of no patience, and no build; while it won't be released until 2015, the movie will be trying to introduce several new iterations of super heroes, as well as tell a story that sees the need for them to assemble as a team.  Marvel spent 6 movies introducing characters, and the end result was a well paced, well reasoned story.

The release of The Avengers saw the realization of several years of hard work to bring together many franchises, but it is not the end goal, which brings us to another tenant of 2012.  Finality is not a word that the movie business likes all that much, and this was not a year in which it was abound.  Sure, Twilight and Batman both wrapped up their respective sagas, but the former stretched a trilogy into four movies (a quilogy?), and the latter left the door open for the franchise to continue - which would be entirely unnecessary.  Meanwhile, The Avengers has acted as a leaping off point for its own sequel, is giving birth to a TV series in S.H.I.E.L.D., and isn't getting in the way of sequels for Thor, Captain America, or Iron Man; whether you like it or not that Hollywood thrives on sequels nowadays, that is an impressive feat.

I suppose that it's worth mentioning that The Avengers was also the top grossing movie of 2012, and had the largest opening weekend box office drawing of all time, but I don't want to measure this list based solely on popularity; in this case, The Avengers just happened to be the most successful movie of the year as well as being the one that defines it.

Runner Up: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

2012 continued the trend that began the year prior, of adding a movie to a series for little to no reason.  Harry Potter began the trend, Twilight extended it's final book to two movies, just as will The Hunger Games.  Peter Jackson, not wanting to be outdone, decided to turn one book into 3 movies.  Without wanting to spoil anything for those who have not yet seen it, I will only say that I see no reason for needing 9 hours to tell The Hobbit.

You're not giving students any credit at all

Dear Langara,

I'm beginning to doubt your slogan; what constitutes "higher learning" precisely?  There's clearly no component of logic involved, because if there were, you would have seem the flaw in yours.

What sense does it make to remove the option of paying one's tuition online by credit card?  Sure, you've left the online debit option up there, but really, do you think this is okay?  Now, I know that me and my $100 per day debit limit are in the minority, but you seem to misunderstand the financial situation of most students.

Hint: it's not a good one.

You seem to think you understand, Langara, but your execution is awful.  "Too many students are accruing too great of a credit card debt as a result of putting their tuition fees on their credit cards," you say.  Sure, I agree, because, no shit.  But this is your response?!  You don't understand why students are paying by credit card, do you?  Don't worry, I'll tell you: it's because most students don't have 1-2 grand in disposable income to drop off at the Registrar's Office.

Not pictured: post secondary student.

Credit cards are the (unfortunate) best option, in that, throughout the semester, one can pay off the tuition in manageable portions.

Now though, you are requiring students to have that tuition money in their bank accounts, at one time, so that our cheques don't bounce on you.  It just doesn't make sense to me.  I'm sorry, Langara, I don't mean to knock you, but come on.  Albert Einstein said "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler".  Understand that you, as an institution, are making things harder for your students.

Okay, end of rant.  Are we good, Langara?
Oh good, I'm glad.  I'll see you on Monday.

Sincerely yours, Tyler

Irrational Twitter rage

Now this is the story all about how
My life got flip-turned upside down
So I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there;
I'll tell you how I overcame my distaste for Twitter (or Twitt-air, if you want to maintain rhyme scheme).

Is 2013 the year Will Smith song references become cool again?  No, probably not.

Despite being a part of the first generation to really grow up alongside the recent technological boom, I'm not what one would call  on the cutting edge of the latest trends.  I'm not technologically illiterate, but let's just point to a few weeks ago when I got super excited at finding a free VHS copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey as an example of my technological priorities.

Text messaging?  I've got that down.  Same goes for Facebook (for the most part), but e-mail is one thing I've never adapted to.  I think I was 11 when I got my first e-mail address, but in the nine years since, I've never been able to get into the routine of checking it more than once a fortnight.

It's probably not surprising to hear then, that Twitter passed me by.  "It's a site made up solely of Facebook statuses," I scoffed (probably as I typed that exact phrase as my status).  Over the next couple of years, I shifted my position to the viewpoint of acknowledging the utility of Twitter as a medium for businesses and media personalities, but maintained that it was largely useless to the everday person.  This, of course, is a logical inconsistency, because if it were only businesses and the media on Twitter, then to whom would they be communicating information?

Then came this past September.  I'm sure we've all had a class where there are a few people who say ludicrous things that are fun to quote for a laugh, but never have I witnessed a goldmine as consistent as the girls who sat in the row behind mine in my sociology class.  By the end of the term, I was keeping notes in my phone of their particularly outstanding pearls of wisdom.

"Wait, real people said these things?!  Hah!"

It was then that the idea came to me, like a small blue bird fluttering into my head: I had to get Twitter.  Their words shall live on in cyber-space - provided they are 140 characters or fewer.  Classics such as "Sometimes I hate learning all this stuff about the world; it's so much easier not to know" will soon be joined by the verbal miscues of the coming semester.

Soon after that, the next epiphany came: I had a handle!  Given that I attend Langara, and the theme of the account is, to put it bluntly, documenting verbal errors, there was a perfect way to encapsulate that in the name.  I toyed with the idea of calling it @Lamegara, but I didn't want to be that negative toward the school; I really enjoy it.  No, I thought to myself, while stepping onto the Canada Line, it shall be called @Langerra!  As soon as I got home, I began registering a Twitter account for that name... and it was taken.

Someone who lives in Arizona had registered that exact domain name, for no apparent reason either.  His name shared no letter clusters with the handle, and his Twitter presence amounted to three total tweets, from September 2011 that said "Wazzup", "Wazzzzzuuuuuppp!", and "Hey everybody, wazzup!!"

"You bastard, you're ruining my great idea!!!!!"

I settled for the next best thing.  I'm now on Twitter @Lang_err_a.  It looks clunkier, but it also more clearly conveys the play on words.  It remains to be seen if I can adapt to Twitter, or if this is destined to end up being e-mail part 2, but if you're also on Twitter and want some laughs, the hyperlink a couple lines up will lead you right to it.

UPDATE: I had wanted to link to Wazzup Guy's Twitter account as well, but between the time I registered my account in mid-December and today, he had either changed the name, or deactivated the account.  I've decided to keep mine as is instead of swooping in and claiming @Langerra, because the underscores have grown on me a little.  I'm really disappointed that he no longer has that Twitter account, because that was the entire reason I began writing this post; it's been in my notebook for a few weeks now.

"You bastard, you're ruining the story of how you ruined my great idea!"

School Skills 101: Procrastination

It's your knowledge guru here, back for more wisdom sharing.  If you're new to the class, catch yourself up with our first lecture on the art of the study sheet.

Studying is hard.  All you want to do is go have a nap, or have a 10 hour Seinfeld marathon, I get it.  I've been there too.  You've got a test tomorrow and literally anything would be easier than learning your course material.  You're slogging your way through the readings because you know that procrastination is bad for you.  WRONG!!  You're overworking your brain; just check out this pie chart I've made to demonstrate my point.

If only there were more room for Teddy Roosevelt in your brain.

As you can see, you need to accommodate the schoolwork portion of your brain, and so rest periods are a necessity.  So how should you go about getting them?  You might be inclined to schedule periodic rest times to recharge your mental batteries, and then go back to studying.  That would be dumb though.  Boy, it's a good thing you have me here to help guide you to gurudom.  Prepare yourself for some prime guru'ing.

Scheduling rest times means that your brain has to designate a portion of its think-stuff (add that to your vocabulary list; there will be a test on it soon) to keeping track of when your rest times begin and end.  There's no need to be so mentally inefficient.  Instead, you need to learn the art of the spontaneous procrastination.

This is your sensei.

Spontaneous procrastination (S.P.) is a technique that is far more nuanced than one might think.  Sure, you've probably procrastinated before, but it's likely been at the novice level (an S.P. level of 1-4); giving 30 minutes of your time to watching George take an IQ test, or scouring Facebook for a few hours, looking at every picture in a 200 photo album belonging to a stranger who is mutual friends with that one person you met once and added.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Operating at a novice S.P. level is perfectly acceptable, after all, statistically speaking, procrastination is how you found, and why you are reading this article.  Once you've mastered a level 4 S.P., however, you should begin challenging yourself.

I'll walk you through an example intermediate S.P. (level 5-8) exercise.  It is necessary that one has a beard for this.  Guys, if you don't, then your first procrastination exercise should be to grow one.  Be sure to track progress in a journal and calculate at what rate of growth you are progressing.  This should keep you occupied for a while.  Girls, testosterone injections are one option, but a washable-marker-beard will suffice.

Darkest Timeline beards are also acceptable.  But only as a last resort.

When the desire to procrastinate hits, shave (or wash, in the case of marker-beards).  But don't shave clean, just periodically change the beard whenever you're burnt out from studying.  What makes this an intermediate S.P. level is that you're able to track your procrastination in units that don't correlate with time.  Whereas with Seinfeld you might watch 3 episodes (an hour and a half), or with Facebook you might be on there for 2 hours, at this level of S.P., you can keep track of procrastination via the use of photos.  Observe:

Hey, that ended up not half bad...

Oh god, nevermind.  That got hideous quickly.

Muttonchops should always be in style

My face feels naked.  Time to break out the washable marker and start over.

Guru fact: your image of a guru probably has a beard for exactly this reason.

Should you master intermediate S.P., you can progress to level 9: Expert.  In this level, your procrastination time is utilized to create a ranking system for procrastination, with an in-depth detailing of where different procrastination techniques rank in relation to each other, and why.  Once you've accomplished that, you will be one step closer to being a knowledge guru yourself.

Now you can go back to studying, with the knowledge that your brain is ready to fully delve into your coursework.

Titles hate me today: This is about genies

The working title of this piece was "Genieus", a tenuous pun achieved by lengthening the pronunciation of the word 'genius' into 3 syllables.  I had to scrap it because whenever I looked at it, all I saw was a portmanteau of 'genie' and 'us'.  Not only is this a terrible portmanteau because of the fact that both words appear in their entirety, which would be profoundly lazy, but it also implies that the core argument of the piece is that within each of us exists the potential to actualize the things we wish for.

It's actually a piece that I wouldn't mind reading if someone were to write it, but I had no intention of attempting it, and therefore had to ditch "Genieus" for the far-more-eloquent title above.

Let's take a hypothetical situation.  For the purpose of this, we establish that genies exist.  This isn't common knowledge, and they are incredibly rare; no one within 3 degrees of seperation of you, perhaps even more, is aware that genies exist.  But the fact remains that they do.

Feel free to take a moment to go rub any lamps...   You never know.

So one day, you're walking with your friend, and a genie emerges from a bottle on the side of the road.  The genie grants the two of you three wishes.  You and your friend immediately use the first wish to have the genie appear identical to Genie from Aladdin, because really, how could you not use the first wish for this?

Perfect.

The genie now looks like Genie, but in two dimensions.  Genies tend to twist your words around, with unexpected results.  This is of course very visually jarring, but it's better than having specified a three dimensional alternative, because if you had, the end result would have probably been this:

It bothers me that this photo is easily accessible outside of the context of this hypothetical. 

You and your friend are now left with one wish each.  I pose two questions of this hypothetical situation: What do you wish for? And what should you wish for?

Before we delve into these questions, a sidebar to elaborate on the dickish nature of genies, prefaced by two jokes, found here and here.

A guy goes into a bar, sits down and orders a drink. While waiting, he sees a guy sitting at the bar who has a very big muscular body but a tiny head. So he asks the guy, "How is it that you have such a huge body and a small head?"The guy replied, "I was walking along the beach one day and I came across this bottle buried halfway in the sand. So I picked it up, brushed away the sand, and out popped this fine female genie. She said she would grant me three wishes for releasing her."For my first wish, I asked for ten-million dollars, and POOF right there on the sand was $10,000,00."For my second wish, I asked for a luxury yacht, and POOF right there on the ocean was a 90-foot yacht."Finally for my third wish, I asked to have sex with the genie, but she said that genies were not allowed to indulge in those kind of activities." So, I said, " c'mon, how about a little head?" 

A man and an ostrich walk into a restaurant. The waitress asks, "What will it be?"The man replied "A burger and a coke."  "I'll have the same," the ostrich replies. They finish their meal and pay. "That will be $4.50." The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out the exact amount. They do this every day until Friday."The usual?" she asked. "No, today is Friday. I'll have steak and a coke.""Me too." says the ostrich. They finish and pay. "That will be $10.95"The man reaches in and pulls out that exact amount, just as he had all week.The waitress is dumb-founded. "How is it that you always have the exact amount?""Well," says the man. "I was cleaning my attic and I found a dusty lamp. I rubbed it and a genie appeared." Wow!" said the waitress. "What did you wish for?""I asked that when I needed to pay for something, the exact amount would appear in my pocket." "Amazing! Most people would ask for a million dollars. But what's with the ostrich?" "Well," said the man. "I also asked for a chick with long legs."

Genie lore seems to have sprouted from the Islam faith, which tells of the Jinn, creatures who lives in a parallel world to humans, who have free will, and are generally painted as wanting to tempt humans (to whom they are invisible) with evil.

The crux of both of these jokes (and they are far from the only two) is that the person who found the genie spoke in an ambiguous manner when wishing, and as such, the genie saw fit to mess with them.

With the knowledge that genies will take any opportunity to fuck you over in mind, what would you wish for?  And more importantly, what should you be ethically compelled to wish for?

I'll examine the second question first, and then provide my answer to the first.  This question came up in a discussion I had, and the first thing I thought when asked what I should wish for was 'Probably something that would improve the world'.  The person with whom I was discussing said their wish would be for all the Earth's water to become clean, which is an incredibly admirable, selfless wish.  But it would cause problems.

Firstly, there's always the possibility that we would then re-pollute our water supplies, assuming that it would become clean once more.  I certainly wouldn't put that past human beings.  The larger problem, in my opinion, is how would this phenomenon be explained?  Remember, to the rest of the world, this would appear to have been magical.  We know it was a genie, yes, but the rest of the world doesn't.  And if you were to come forward saying "Oh, it was just my genie wish," you'd never be able to convince the majority.

"Guys... my genie.  I'm telling the truth... Why won't you listen to me?"

Further, something on such a grand scale would discredit a lot of scientific knowledge, because, thanks to science, we know that you can't just un-pollute the world's water supplies.  I feel that, while noble, it would be detrimental to wish for something like that.

So, what should one feel obligated to wish for?  If it's personal gain you're after, I'd suggest phrasing your wish much like the guy in the second joke did.  When I have to pay for something, I wish to have that exact amount in my pocket.  (on a side note, that second joke is made far weaker by the fact that he was smart enough to phrase his wish in such a sophisticated way, but also wished for "a bird with long legs".  Hmm, is there any way this could be misinterpreted?...)

Giggity.

I'm not saying one shouldn't feel obliged to use their wish in a way that benefits the world though, in fact, I would encourage it.  Through the process of writing this, I decided that a wish should be used for something like "I wish that people would open their eyes to the fact that the belief that there isn't enough food to feed the world is a myth".  Something that would profoundly change our collective outlook on the world, but that doesn't violate the laws of how we understand the world.

To address the first question I posed, when I identified my now-circumvented problem of wishing for something large-scale, I settled on I wish to read the Harry Potter series without context again.  I was advised to include a clause that established that Alzheimer's was not a factor in any way.  I am a big fan of this clause.

My mind would orgasm if this were possible.

The thing that interests me is what would one wish for?  And is there a disconnect between that and what one feels they should be obliged to wish for?  For me, it would be awfully hard to turn down getting to read "The Prince's Tale" and having my mind blown a second time.  And besides, we don't need a genie to realize there is enough food on this planet to feed everyone.  Stop being complacent in being told there isn't!

The definitive guide to monkey trees

Childhood is a funny thing.  Not everyone gets to wile away the days watching Space Jam and jumping on, off, around, and sometimes through, every playground you passed by.  For example, I assume that Torontonian children grow up in a concrete jungle devoid of foliage and fun, in a world that only changes when it's blanketed in 3 feet of soul crushing snow.

Although if you made snowmen like this, then you win.

Torontonians, don't organize an angry mob to hunt me down just yet.  I'm not arbitrarily picking on you, I'm doing this because one of your own doesn't understand monkey trees.  I know, terrible, eh?!  Now that we're on the same page Torontonians, I'd appreciate if you allowed me to outline monkey tree protocol.  Cool?  Cool.

If I wanted to pick on Toronto, I wouldn't stray from the bread and butter.

This is a monkey tree:

It is named as such for two reasons:  Firstly, its branches resemble a monkey tail (probably true).  Secondly, these trees are more tropical than the majority of trees found in urban areas; monkeys are more tropical animals than most city animals; ergo the two got associated (almost certainly not true).  In any case, it's called a monkey tree.  When one sees a monkey tree, if one is with another party, one may pinch the second party and say "Monkeys bite, can't bite the butcher back!"  (Monkey tree leaves are pointed and quite sharp, which I suppose could be construed as a bite.)  There's a one pinch per tree maximum, so be sure to get your pinch in quickly.

That's the only rule of monkey trees (it's not all that complicated Toronto, teach your children these things!), but I'll explain the mandatory phrase, because admittedly, when I first thought about it instead of just parroting it, it didn't make much sense.

"Monkeys bite, can't bite the butcher back!"  Yes, monkeys have teeth and can therefore bite.  But monkeys can't be butchers, silly children's saying, who ever heard of animals doing people things?

Except looking far more badass driving than you can ever hope to.

Okay, maybe I interpreted that wrong, let's try again:  Monkeys bite.  Fact.  Entirely unrelated to the second clause, I just wanted you to know for sure that monkeys are capable of using their jaws to clamp down upon an object...  And then your local butcher bites you, perhaps to just really drive home what the act of biting is.

Yeah, that doesn't make much sense either, unless we live in a world where the holders of one of the few occupations that involve using really sharp knives to cut up flesh also have a propensity to dine on human drumsticks, and I don't want to live in that world.  So let's try a third option to try to make sense of this saying: "Monkey's bite, can't bite the butcher back!"  Adding the apostrophe to make this a possessive finally yields some sense.  Some horrifying, gruesome sense.  What this implies is that you, the butcher, have beheaded a monkey that was just chilling out in his or her tree, and are now using it's probably still-bleeding head to bite your companion.  Because apparently everything about childhood rituals need to have a basis in death.  Yikes!