Sociotard

She-Hulk was about as modest and pragmatically dressed as superheroines ever got, so the porn star line was wrong. That said, the hulk and she-hulk DID have sex and make inbred hulk babies, so he did have a point there Now that I think about it, all his comments about her being a sex object were with the implication "and it is bad to make female characters who are just that". So his heart is in the right place. And Martian Manhunter is more obscure than most of the rest of the justice league. Aquaman probably has better name recognition.

I never played GTA, but I thought most characters in the game were some variant of crazy/violent/criminal? Including the protagonist? So the problem with the gay guy being crazy and violent was . . . ? For the video game industry as a whole, I can see the videos point, especially the sims game where the option was specifically removed. At the same time, I don't have as much of a problem with the "gays as a bad guy" thing. Granted, we are mostly in the Sidney Poitier phase of gays in media, where they all have to be delightful flawless people like Kurt from Glee. But bad guy roles are so fun! I'd much rather watch Frank Underwood from House of Cards. (not sure if he's exactly gay. maybe just "complicated sexuality"). Yes, if they are villainous in a way that specifically reflects gay stereotypes, that is a problem, but not for villainy in general.

"Ocean at the End of the Lane" by Neil Gaiman. It's short, so you aren't risking much of your life if you pick it up, and it is Neil Gaiman, so the risk automatically pays off. Anyway, the author really captures the 7-year-old voice and point of view. Highly recommended.

Clay Aiken's top opponent in a North Carolina Congressional Primary is dead after an "accident" in his home. (I really shouldn't have put the quotation marks in there but the idea of little Clay Aiken being a ruthless 'House of Cards' type was too funny not to)

Speaking of . . . Fan made, so I don't know if the later bits (the ones that weren't in the 5 chapters already released) were guesses or if Jim Butcher colluded with his fans. He did post the trailer at jim-butcher.com, so there is that.

Read "The Hollow City", sequel to "Mrs Peregrine's home for peculiar children". It was mediocre.

Oh look, two hams and a turkey.

Now that I think about it, I'd have been really nervous if I had been one of the champs. The martial artists I know comment that sparring with a white belt is more dangerous than sparring with a black belt, because the white belt doesn't know how to spar safely. I suppose it depends on what was meant by "amateur". Guys off the street who had never fenced before? College kids with one semester of fencing? As for the "one at a time" mook strategy, I think that was reinforced by the balloons. There was only one, in the front, and it was hard to get to any way but one at a time. Had they gone for an extra balloon in the back, we might have seen more flanking actions. Also, stupid spell check doesn't recognize mook as a word. That's just silly.

It looks like they just ran low on END there at the end. Not bad, even for going up against 1 HP mooks.

But he made a sexist comment in a way that made sexism look normal. which is a problem even for bad guys.

I think part of the problem is that it does seem so natural for a villain to demean a woman because she is a woman. There's a sense that this is basically normal behavior. See, it's only bad guys threatening to rape catwoman and calling her sexist slurs. If Batman ever does get threatened with rape, it is nowhere near as common. It is only normal to make the threat to the woman.

I've certainly commented. But yes, largely a link drop.

I had some fun doing painting with light on an old sword of some kind I found at my in-laws house. I also used burning steel wool for the first time, so that was extra fun.

Amusing: I was looking for a statistic I'd seen too long ago to remember the actual source. Look what happened when I typed the following question into Google: Anyway, the point I was going for, was I do kind of empathize with the "earing money" portion of his argument. A lot of the wage gap and glass ceiling gap does seem related to things besides actively hating women. Like the hours issue he pointed out, or the way Wal-Mart was targeted for wanting new managers to relocate , or the way women are more likely to have taken a few years out of the workforce. These are areas where policies, even ones with completely rational, hate-free purposes behind them, can affect women differently than men. Its what makes Feminism hard to put in practice. (but we should work on it anyway) The bonus prize is that if we do work on those hard places, we might help some dudes too. I was taken by an article about the Ban Bossy campaign, which points out that people are more likely to tell assertive girls they are bossy than boys, who are being good, take charge leaders. They made a lot of good points, but what really stood out to me was the way it reminded me of Cracked's article on 6 Ways Life Is Different If You're Short and Male. It actually seemed similar, in that it pointed out that an assertive short man has "a Napoleon Complex" or "small dogs disease". Okay, this is unlike the above paragraph in that it's more "subconscious sexism" rather than "accidental sexism". Anyway. Feminism is hard.

I only played the first Halo game, but 1) Master Chief does run away from danger he can't possibly fight (when Halo is going to explode). He doesn't comment on being afraid of that, but he honestly doesn't comment on much in the game in any event. 2) I have no idea how to make a game about expressing fear in a healthy, productive way that would be fun. I've played horror games like Condemned, and while they did a good job letting me feel fear in my seat (in that fun way horror movies do) the character didn't express anything of the sort. 3) I understand that the lack of Female and Gay characters is a problem, but 4) I hate it when people conflate that issue with violent games. I should be allowed to enjoy violent video games and want women in games accorded whatever degree of respect the male characters do, both at the same time. So, basically, yes boys should feel comfortable asking for help when they are afraid, but asking for help in a game is boring and disempowering. Feeling mighty is one of the funnest parts of video games.

I finally picked up The Martian. I can recommend it. As Robinsonades go, it was a lot of fun. The character was kind of flat, but he was funny, and he had the kind of optimistic I-can-do-this attitude that we see too little in sci fi these days. And Chris Hadfield liked the technical accuracy in it so it has that going for it.

Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan. It was entertaining, with a fairly diverse set of characters. Napoleonic setting with magic. As the industrial revolution takes hold, a new sort of magic is appearing: powder mages. They can snort gunpower like cocaine to become superhuman (also addictive like cocaine), plus they can control bullets, redirect energy from exploding gunpowder, and more. great fun.

Dashboard cams, you're doing it wrong. Seriously though, moviemaking in the old days just seems insanely dangerous.

I didn't know Gamer Girl was slur. Or that it implied a girl was not a real gamer.

In Bristol, England, lickmeimdelicious is now selling (expensive) glowing ice-cream. It uses jellyfish extract so it lights up when it hits your tongue. http://inhabitat.com/man-creates-140-a-scoop-glow-in-the-dark-ice-cream-using-synthesized-jellyfish-luminescence/

NASA Gets Sued For Not Noticing That Mars Mystery Rock Is Totally An Alien

Any idea how relevant that "Jelly Doughnut" rock they found on mars is? Nasa seemed super excited about it.

"Some bird just ate blinky, the three eyed fish. How will we ever find it?"