Never Censored

Whoh! Cool!!! Awesome!!!!!

Okay, so it's not that amazing, but it's pretty damn cool. I was watching this show called "Degrassi High" or something close to that and I saw something that really made my heart flutter: recurring gay characters.

Now, I mean, this isn't anything amazing on its own. After all, it's not on broadcast television (but rather Noggin, a cable station), and it's not even made in the US (it's a Canadian show); but, the gay characters have been recurring since the 2002 season, according to IMDB's DeGrassi series page.

In any case, what warmed my heart was not the fact that there are gay characters, but that there are gay characters on a teen show. Now, say what you will about the occasionally painful plotlines of the show, it's admirable enough. There are many good little plotlines that talk about everything from B.O. to school shootings, as well as some fun jokes tossed into the dialogue. But, as I said earlier, the gayness within the otherwise straight atmosphere is what's great about it. They occupy as much time as the token black guys and the Asians, and just happily integrate themselves with the plotlines. The fact that they’re gay gets overlooked the same way that being black today gets overlooked—in the show’s eyes, there is no inequality. Anyway…

Basic media coverage aside, the true beauty of it all is that the subject is being treated with dignity. The gay "minority" as it can be called continues to emerge as an actualized political presence. While the gay population in the States thinks the future looks dim for fags, the reality of it is that everywhere else in the world (and really, in the states, as well), good things are coming our way (for a change). You see this in the media, and you see this in people's demeanors. Fifty years ago, even in the most industrialized cities people still hated gay people. Now, they don't care. And that’s good!

I don't care what anyone else says, moving from hatred to apathy is a great step; because, inherently, one can't move from hatred to love in quick succession-- the two emotions are too far removed from each other for that to happen on a broad scale. A society must first undergo the middle emotion-- apathy in this case--to be able to ever reach the other end.

The fact that Degrassi humanizes us is relieving. I truly wish more young people would be able to watch it and see that they’re normal. Perhaps then they wouldn’t be so inclined to blow their brains out or push a syringe of heroin up their vein in order to feel better about themselves.

But what do I know?

Okay, time for "New Rules" again. This week we've a fun one:

If you don't know how a cell phone works, then you shouldn't own one.

The reasoning is quite simple-- it's the same that can be applied to computers and other tidbits of technology, but *shrug*. Basically, if you don't know how/why something works, then, well, don't use it. I originally started thinking about this when I saw ads for that cell phone EM field protector. How can anyone be so stupid to buy one of these wonderful pieces of scrap metal to stick inside your phone or by your ear? Simple: they don’t know how shit works.

So, let’s play for a moment. We’ll call it learning. I suggest that if anyone out there has dumbshit friends who have those pieces of shit “guards” on their phones that you direct them here. It’ll be really easy… I’ll even include a pretty picture. See:



As we can see from the pretty chart above, visible light (the kind you’re seeing when you’re reading this shit) rests primarily between wavelengths of 400-750nm range—quite small, actually.

Too many numbers!!! OMFG! OVERLOAD! Don’t be a pussy. In the end this will help you save money.

Now, looking back at the chart, we see things higher and lower than the visible light area. Higher (which means shorter wavelength, which means higher energy), we see ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays. If you ever have watched cheesy sci-fi movies, you’ll know that gamma rays are very, very bad for you. In fact, they’re deadly (because they destroy DNA, disrupt electron balances in elements, cause cancer at the very least, and just really make people dead). We rarely get exposed to that shit because we’ve got an ozone layer. But, if you ever hear about “radioactive fallout” and all that nastiness, you’re generally talking about gamma rays and lower intensity versions of those.

Anyway, we also see right below the “death” rays of the x-ray range. Ever get an x-ray at the doctor? Yep, these are the things they shoot through your body that can cause cancer if you’re exposed to them too often. Thankfully x-rays aren’t too powerful. But still, they’re nasty.

Below those we see the ultraviolet range. This covers everything from the bad rays from the sun that cause melanoma to the uv lights you see in clubs that are harmless. Basically, I guess we can say that it’s a fairly innocent range, but *shrug*, we’ll look at it with caution.

Below that we’ve got normal visible light. Visible light will never cause cancer. Period. It’s not high enough energy. Damn, now we’re getting somewhere.

Below that is the infrared range. This is the range your remote control for your TV uses (among other things). Again, not a problem.

Below that we’ve got microwaves. This is where even the highest powerful cellular phone transmissions fall. The cell range in America falls into the 850-1900mHz frequency range, and cellular transmissions throughout the world never go above 3000mHz.

Knowing that, we’ve got to convert frequency to wavelength (so that we can use it with our fun, rainbow chart).

Basically, instead of going back to physics (which I invite anyone to do), I just used a calculator.

So we converted 3000 mHz—the highest frequency even possible for cell transmissions in the world—to nanometers. (and coincidentially centimeters and whatever else the form spits out).

Aaaaanyway, once you punch it out, we’ve got 3000mHz which equals 99,931 nanometers (9 cm). Wow! That’s a big number. That’s over 100 times larger than the visible light wavelengths (400-750 nm)! That’s massive!

The sad thing is that the larger the wave, the less energy it has; and, we’ve just proven that cell transmissions are over 100 times larger than the most highly energized visible light (incidentally, dark purple @ 400 nm).

Bummer. Guess that’s why the “protectors” are on sale for $1 as opposed to $20…. They’re useless.

So basically, we need to sum up everything we’ve discovered today:

FIRST: The lower the wavelength, the better the chance the wave will be dangerous. So, we can rank the waves in order of dangerousness, with the most dangerous being #1.
1. Gamma
2. X-Ray
3. UV
4. Visible
5. Infrared
6. Micro
7. Radio

SECOND: Cell phone transmissions fall into the low end of the “Micro” category, which is still well below the “Visible” category.

THIRD: You’re a dumbshit if you think visible light (visible range) and remote controls (infrared) will cause less cancer than a cell phone in the “micro” range. I mean c’mon, if I’m supposed to get cancer from a lower energy wave than what I can see with my eyes, I might as well live in darkness for the rest of my life.

So there we have it! The type of people who can’t figure this out for themselves probably shouldn’t be using cell phones in the first place; and, at the very least, should be taken for all the money they have. Might as well take all their money before they wreck their cars because they were driving while talking about how much “cancer” they’re being exposed to because of talking on their cell phones.

… of course, we would never tell them that even higher energy waves than cell waves are being beamed down on them from their desk lamps, ‘cause then they’d really shit their pants in fear.

Hmm, after watching Candyman and several other movies, I have realized that if I my life ever had to be part of a movie, there is a list of careers/jobs I would refuse to hold in the interests of self-preservation.

The bad guy's henchman. Absolutely the number one guarantee of death. The hero is always invincible, so even shooting the fucker in the head tends not to work. Really, if you get hired as the bad guy's henchman, you should just switch sides, because in the long run you'll prosper much more. Oh yeah, and if you're actually stuck with being the henchman, don't do those creatively elaborate deaths. Generally the result is somehow-- magically-- you die elaborately (and many times with much pain).

Prostitute. They always have a way of dying at some point in the movie. Perhaps this is America's puritanical society subconsciously admonishing people to avoid a life of bodyselling. In any case, it almost never fails they end up with a bullet in their head, dismembered, or some other horrible misery-- AND, it happens at the start of the movie, so there's no cameratime.

Mafia boss. Ranked highly, the evil mafia boss generally runs about even with henchmen. Whether it be pissing off the hero by killing his wife/girlfriend/lover/prostitute, or trying to claim revenge for some bullshit reason, the mafia boss always gets it in the end. The good thing is he has a pretty good life and decent camera time until it all comes crashing down in the end (sometimes literally).

A woman. Granted, there are exclusions to this, but we've already covered the death of wife/girlfriend/lover/prostitute, so obviously we have to include this too. I would say more women tend to get killed in movies; and, the ones that are main characters tend to be weak-assed, run-away-from-the-badguy-instead-of-chopping-his-head-off-when-you-have-the-fucking-chance pussies. At the very least, I'll have to thwart the advances of some nasty dude; however, the perk is getting the guy in the end, or at the very least dying a tear-jerking death which causes the hero to kill someone... like a mafia boss. If I was stuck being a woman, I'd avoid pitch black places; and, if something tickles my spine, instead of shouting "is anyone there? HELLO? You better come out or I'll call the police. Hello?" thereby alerting the evil person/thing to your presence, I would quickly and quietly start looking for a weapon with which to defend myself. Oh yeah, and I'd learn to shoot motherfuckers in the head instead of spasming with the gun that has the safety on. Fucking dumbshit moralistic cunts.

Innocent bystander. `Nuff said. These people get more bullets in them and get more exploded than security teams on Star Trek. Even the most loyal servant of the mafia (see above) can be blown away by his own boss. How's that for job security?

Druggies. Now, I'm all for pot smoking in real life, but I've noticed a lot of potheads (or other drug users in movies) tend to die fairly quickly. But why? I mean, c'mon... it's just weed.

Uniformed officer. Whenever the star detective's getting shot at, the poor cops get shot and/or killed. At the very least, their cars get wrecked; but, thankfully, you always seem to see them escape at the last minute. The second half of "uniformed officer" is rent-a-popo. They almost always die as well (not nearly as much as the henchman, but they die a lot).

Anyway, cheers.

I've noticed something interesting about AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). People seem to say with more ease whatever they want to say but won't say to your face. I'm fairly sure many of you have had one or two conversations on AIM that you really sit back and say "Geez, this shouldn't be on AIM. This should be a conversation over lunch or something."

Perhaps it's the internet's nature to do this to people. When there isn't a face in front of you, it's just text. When I want to bitch at JennySmith21 or some other screen name, we're not really bitching at Jenny Smith, we're bitching at some... part... of her. Hence, when I see all of the hacking and attacking and all sorts of mayhem, I really have to wonder would all of this actually happen if there was always a face behind the act? What if there always was an easily traceable way to find anyone who contacts you?

As it stands, all connection and customer information is held at each individual isp. When anyone (including law enforcement) tries to find out who a certain person is online, he must first contact the ISP to obtain their logs. ISPs will give out logs to law enforcement personnel without so much as a warrant, in many cases. However, I think I'm very close to advocating a complete disclosure of all connection information to anyone who wishes to see it. Obviously, we can see why we'd want to do this-- it would always put a face to an action-- but why do people disagree with this?

1. It's an invasion of privacy.
Not any more than a license plate on a car, or a vehicle identification number (VIN). After all, if someone gets run over or their car gets stolen, it seems that both help out tons.

2. It lets people find me.
Again, not any more than the aforementioned. Anyone can look up through public records vehicle information. Additionally, there are many internet sites that allow you to find a person's, home address phone number, or name if you have any one of them. You can also order complete vehicular histories for a small price online (it's how auto insurance people know if you get in a wreck, get stuck with a speeding ticket, etc). There are plenty of ways for someone to "find you." Go ask a private detective and you'll be scared to find out how many different ways people can "find you."

3. Okay, fine, people can find me, but what about bad people who want to anally ravage my son/daughter because they found him/her in a chat room.
This one's simple: don't let your kids use the computer without your supervision. Or, even better, download and install one of many web filters (google: net nanny, cyberpatrol, n2h2 (bess), and all sorts of others). Parents are too damn lazy to watch what their kids do, so they want filters on this and censors on that. Even more, they put the god damn leashes on their kids. Whatever to holding the damn kid's hand? But noooo, parents have to bitch about South Park, pornography, and drugs because they're too chickenshit to be bothered to watch what their kids are doing.


Of course, this is pointless to argue. The internet is so vast that tens of thousands of ISPs, upon several hundred countries would be impossible to regulate. And, I probably wouldn't want it regulated. I do too much shady crap on the internet to ever want someone to find me.

However, I do really, really, really want to beat the living shit out of those people who are total dicks online (whether it be in games or in chat). If it's just for a couple days, that would be sufficient. Once a few dead bodies turn up and the news links them to the "crazed gamer" who got pissed at the "idiot chatters," nobody would ever say shit to anyone online ever again.

Heh, that'd be funny.
"Are you 'InYourFace69' from Halo2?"
"Yes"
Bang bang bang bang
*silence*... *walks away*.

But yeah. So that's my immature rant for today. Everyone have a great Sunday.

Okay, this might just be a drunken rant, but...

I really do think that Earth is the place where they send people who were too evil for hell. It's the ultimate punishment that far surpasses "hell." I mean, in hell, there's pure "punishment." You get tortured, mutilated, damned, etc. Fortunately, in hell, you have no point of reference. After a while, you get used to your "punishment." Eventually, the 1,000 lashings a day will just be routine. The constant sorrow and depression will just be normal. Thus, Hell is ineffective at "punishing" anyone.

However, Earth makes a much better torture ground. Honestly, if I was Satan, I would move my HQ here. In hell, you're limited to 24/7 torture, misery, heat, etc. Here, on earth, you get a nice blend of both torture and misery, combined with the complete opposites of each for short, ephemeral durations. As a result, each "tortured soul" endures his/her fair share of pain because he/she has an accurate source of reference. He has the up to compare with the down... one moment a person's life can be going wonderfully, and the next moment it can go "boom" in his face, and he quite readily recognizes the contrast.

What better torture than the constant but unreachable goal of happiness? What better torture than the constant but unreachable goal of love? What better torture than the constant but unreachable goal of friendship?

Pain you can get over. Emotional suffering's quite another thing.

I used to think that people who committed suicide were stupid, shortsighted people. But, really, perhaps we are the shortsighted people. Perhaps they knew what they were doing. How much worse could pergatory/hell/whatever be than our own, personalized hells-- bereft in a sea of loneliness, hatred, love, sorrow, lust, and greed?

This is by no means a cry for help or some other bullshit-type "you mentioned suicide and I have to save you" type of crap. I already have death on my conscience, so don't read into the lines. I'm just saying this to play devil's advocate: maybe I was wrong in misjudging people who chose alternative lives-- err, deaths. Maybe they knew a lot more than they were letting on.

Cheers.