Vondy

I first learned of them in Edith Hamilton's Mythology. 
 
But, then, I was a weird ten year old.
 
Of course, the next "source" for Norse Myths that I read was Deities & Demigods. 
 
Which included bare-midriff snow-bunny Freya...

This is true well beyond the sphere of entertainment...

When I was twenty, I really-really cared.
 
Past forty, I really-really don't care.
 
Call it cause exhaustion.
 
Give it a rest.

I know, confident and unambiguous communication is something I need to work on.

When people in the office start grousing and griping and grouching I play YouTube videos of The Joy of Painting.
 
Everyone is fine and chuckling within 10-15 minutes.
 
He gets really violent cleaning his brushes. Catharsis, me thinks.

Actually, I'd drop the "different" there.

I see that Anderson chick's false prophet is still on his soap-box on the street corner with a sharpied cardboard sign in hand.
 
Her divinity is not falsifiable and therefore cannot be objectively proven to the satisfaction of rational minds.
 
Its a diabolical imp of subjective perversity that has infected your mind and drives your devotion the the red-headed Jezebel.
 
Take your foul succubus and be gone!!

Apparently the Steve Jobs movie is a flop.
 
Despite all the praise it is getting from Hollywood critics and the like. It's weird, how offended some in the Hollywood set seem to be that folks aren't rushing to see it.
I suppose to the tech gurus out there, he's either a patron saint or the second coming of Edison (As in ripped off folks and knew how to market), but to most folks, he made a big splash, made his millions, and died. Movies about Silicon Valley and so on have been done, so this movie really just sounded...
dull. 
 
Add to this that you couldn't escape the marketing if you watched TV at all. It was so darn pervasive that I know I felt something of a growing contrariness about it. The more times they showed those commercials on TV, Hulu, Youtube etc, the more and more I wished the movie would just go away. Maybe I wasn't alone in having a kind of hype resentment.
 
Is it a good movie? Very likely. Does that in any way engender an obligation on the average movie goer to see something that doesn't interest them in the slightest? No.
But Hollywood (At least many in it) seems to have a hard time realizing that. They bitch and whine about superhero movies and/or action films getting all the love (And they take that money as they whine all the way to the bank). Look, people can love dramas and agree with the critics. To this day, the I am very glad I saw the King's Speech. But sometimes I think Hollywood's movie people aren't just disconnected from the populace, they're actively disdainful of that public unless the public claps and cheers to their every offering they claim is worthy.
 
Why am I posting about this? I'm not sure. Maybe I'm ironically emulating Hollywood by expecting folks to gasp in wonder at the "pearls of enlightenment" I drop here Maybe I'm imagining that disdain and am totally wrong and would like someone to tell me "Dude, it ain't so." Maybe I'm bored.
 
Eh. Still rather be posting than watch a Steve Jobs movie.

My issue with the narrative about online harassment is that they don't bother to reference the numbers. Almost all studies to date show higher male reporting of online harassment than female reporting. Pew, for instance, put the numbers are 44% of male internet users and 37% of female internet users. Similar ratios play out in several reports. The average ratios of abusive tweets, for example, was that 2.54% of 2 million aimed at men, and 0.94% of 2 million aimed at women. This is despite the fact that female adoption of social media is 10+% higher than their male counterparts. Now, this does not alter the fact that roughly 75% of internet abuse is linked to male users. But, by that same token, women are significantly more likely to harass other women, than men, online.
 
The one unique factor about the online harassment of women is that it does disproportionately reference their biological sex and/or gender. Women do report greater levels of upset over online harassment than men, but that doesn't mean more women are harassed. Also, the actual numbers of people who faced realistic real-world threats from their online harassers is less than 2% of those harassed. We should do something about the problem, but lopsided-gender profiling and grotesquely sexist assumptions about threats and violence ignores the big picture while not solving either part of the problem. What is more, in terms of violence, its great that we want to stop violence against women. But, what about violence against men?
 
Women are more likely to be raped, stalked, or the victims of domestic abuse (though the gender gap on the latter isn't nearly as wide as people like the think). But, most (and its a big gender gap) victims of serious street violence and MURDER are male. Also, far more men commit suicide or face homelessness than women do. Men also have issues society is morally obligated to address. Men are also victims. Focusing on women's issues while excluding male issues - and male victims - is also the mindset of a mob of vile sexist pigs. Gynocentrism is just as detestable as phallocentrism. We have to take care of everyone. Men and women alike.
 
And, for the record, the UN statement on the matter was ludicrous and read like it had been written by a lunatic.
 
Get a grip already.

My issue with the narrative about online harassment is that they don't bother to reference the numbers. Almost all studies to date show higher male reporting of online harassment than female reporting. Pew, for instance, put the numbers are 44% of male internet users and 37% of female internet users. Similar ratios play out in several reports. The average ratios of abusive tweets, for example, was that 2.54% of 2 million aimed at men, and 0.94% of 2 million aimed at women. This is despite the fact that female adoption of social media is 10+% higher than their male counterparts. Now, this does not alter the fact that roughly 75% of internet abuse is linked to male users. But, by that same token, women are significantly more likely to harass other women, than men, online.
 
The one unique factor about the online harassment of women is that it does disproportionately reference their biological sex and/or gender. Women do report greater levels of upset over online harassment than men, but that doesn't mean more women are harassed. Also, the actual numbers of people who faced realistic real-world threats from their online harassers is less than 2% of those harassed. We should do something about the problem, but lopsided-gender profiling and grotesquely sexist assumptions about threats and violence ignores the big picture while not solving either part of the problem. What is more, in terms of violence, its great that we want to stop violence against women. But, what about violence against men?
 
Women are more likely to be raped, stalked, or the victims of domestic abuse (though the gender gap on the latter isn't nearly as wide as people like the think). But, most (and its a big gender gap) victims of serious street violence and MURDER are male. Also, far more men commit suicide or face homelessness than women do. Men also have issues society is morally obligated to address. Men are also victims. Focusing on women's issues while excluding male issues - and male victims - is also the mindset of a mob of vile sexist pigs. Gynocentrism is just as detestable as phallocentrism. We have to take care of everyone. Men and women alike.
 
And, for the record, the UN statement on the matter was ludicrous and read like it had been written by a lunatic.
 
Get a grip already.

My issue with the narrative about online harassment is that they don't bother to reference the numbers. Almost all studies to date show higher male reporting of online harassment than female reporting. Pew, for instance, put the numbers are 44% of male internet users and 37% of female internet users. Similar ratios play out in several reports. The average ratios of abusive tweets, for example, was that 2.54% of 2 million aimed at men, and 0.94% of 2 million aimed at women. This is despite the fact that female adoption of social media is 10+% higher than their male counterparts. Now, this does not alter the fact that roughly 75% of internet abuse is linked to male users. But, by that same token, women are significantly more likely to harass other women, than men, online.
 
The one unique factor about the online harassment of women is that it does disproportionately reference their biological sex and/or gender. Women do report greater levels of upset over online harassment than men, but that doesn't mean more women are harassed. Also, the actual numbers of people who faced realistic real-world threats from their online harassers is less than 2% of those harassed. We should do something about the problem, but lopsided-gender profiling and grotesquely sexist assumptions about threats and violence ignores the big picture while not solving either part of the problem. What is more, in terms of violence, its great that we want to stop violence against women. But, what about violence against men?
 
Women are more likely to be raped, stalked, or the victims of domestic abuse (though the gender gap on the latter isn't nearly as wide as people like the think). But, most (and its a big gender gap) victims of serious street violence and MURDER are male. Also, far more men commit suicide or face homelessness than women do. Men also have issues society is morally obligated to address. Men are also victims. Focusing on women's issues while excluding male issues - and male victims - is also the mindset of a mob of vile sexist pigs. Gynocentrism is just as detestable as phallocentrism. We have to take care of everyone. Men and women alike.
 
And, for the record, the UN statement on the matter was ludicrous and read like it had been written by a lunatic.
 
Get a grip already.

Fair enough. I certainly know what it feels like to find one's idealism replaced by cynicism.
 
 I hope some light shines for you and some of your optimism is restored.

I hate Facebook. I mostly hate social media.
 
I hang out on a few message boards.
 
But, overall, I prefer to be reasonably anonymous.
 
Psychological nudity can be way overdone.
 
So, today, I was going in to deactivate my FB account when...
 
That red hair, those blue eyes, that lovely  face...  I might know my former fiancée of five years!
 
Here's the thing: the automated attempt to be helpful was the exact opposite of what I wanted.
 
Some things are meant to be left in the past, which the Internet cannot abide by.
 
I haven't thought about her in years, and didn't want to think about her or know about her life now.
 
Nor do I really care what my friends are having for dinner,
 
Or the cute poop-related thing their toddlers said.
 
Or....
 
It just reaffirmed my mission: good riddance, Facebook.

My daughters, when I offered to by them band t-shirts, wanted Def Leppard and AC/DC.
 
Timeless classics.

My daughters, when I offered to by them band t-shirts, wanted Def Leppard and AC/DC.
 
Timeless classics.

Recently watched two Arnie movies; Collateral Damage and Sabotage. I was actually impressed with Sabotage. I didn't think Schwarzenegger could pull off playing such a complex character.  I also saw the trailer for a movie that is coming up where he plays the father of a girl who has been infected with something that is effectively turning her into a zombie-like creature. From the trailer, it looks like Arnie is dipping into some really dramatic stuff. I'm looking forward to it. Oh and Collateral Damage was an okay movie too.
 
Watched Scream 3 last night. Even though the deconstruction trope is getting more than a little worn, I actually enjoyed it. 
 
Every weekend I watch top 10 lists on Youtube. From them, I learned that I never want to watch any of the Saw movies, Hostel or a plethora of other torture porn movies. Just the few scenes they show failed to engage my "thriller" mind and just left a vague sense of disgust. I also learned that those kinds of things (top 10 lists) touch upon my obsessive streak as I "have" to watch the next one and the next one. 

Collateral (2004). I'm watching a lot of noir-crime shoot 'em ups of late. This was a sharply written noir thriller with a common man protagonist that worked. The cinematography was clean and crisp, the script was sharp, and the casting was superb. Full disclosure, I ordinarily can't stand Tom Cruise. But, Cruise cast against type as a ruthless villain? He nailed the role in perfect spades with a lean and convincing performance that was better than any "hero" role he's delivered. It also made the most of Los Angeles and said something about how disjointed and disconnected the LA experience can be, which jives with the dark, disturbing noir genre to a tee. An excellent film.

I know a lot of comic fans complained about the body count in MoS, but let's be frank: as much as we like to watch epic super-battles we don't want to think about just how much collateral damage would ensure. We want our super-battles, like our media representation of wars, to be clean and bloodless.
 
Its one of the things I've never been able to reconcile about comic book narratives and morality. I find the fan's *expectations* unrealistic. If people who can rend tanks with their bare hands start throwing punches, there will be blood. Its also why my games with superhumans look more like actions films and thrillers than comic books.
 
Of course, Incredibles was animated, but I take body-counts for granted when violence erupts. Blood, bone, and corpses are what violence is. I find attempts to sanitize violence in our media more morally problematic than depicting the results. I know, I'm a stick in the mud.

CASCADIA NOW!

I was going through my old Jovian Chronicles books and realized and how easily elements and characters from the Champions Universe could be translated into it (without super powers, per se). New project!

I've never been good at liking what the marketing gods and politicos tell me to like.
 
I'm a talentless hack where popular culture, and opinion, is concerned.

My thought when I read that was "what decade was that statistic pulled from?"
 
There has been a huge shift in marketing emphasis in the past 25 years.

I've always appreciated the concise concepts, lower dex/spd ratios, and simpler (less granular) designs of characters from earlier versions. While I love options, the default granularity of later editions does not sit well upon my tortured brow.

I've never been good at liking what the marketing gods and politicos tell me to like.
 
I'm a talentless hack where popular culture, and opinion, is concerned.

Wow. That is actually good news. Some eight or so years ago it was closer to a quarter. Maybe over a quarter.
 
La Rose.