Yeah, those are horrible examples. Carlos Mencia had everyone shit on him once it came to light that he stole jokes wholesale. Dennis Leary gets the shaft for lifting a lot of his material from Bill Hicks, even while he was still alive. Dane Cook was big a few years ago, but he was also found to be stealing jokes, and people wised up to his horrible delivery. I think with a few exceptions (Patton Oswalt for one) material from after the 90s is weaksauce.
Patton Oswalt is kinda iffy for me. I've heard stuff I liked, and I've heard stuff that just fell flat. My hipster friend insists I love him as well, which poisons the well a bit. Also, I've noticed there's been a trend since...I dunno when of comedians leaning toward a persona that can be summed up as "I'm such an insensitive asshole, aren't I just so
edgy? that I find annoying, but that's just the perception I've gotten from the few brushes I've had with it lately.
Aside from your DS/GBASP do you play many video games?
Emulators have been my buddy, as I lost my SNES cables some time ago. And for stuff I could have never actually played in my language anyways. I've not messed with consoles much lately. Which isn't so bad as I have no current gen consoles for stuff to keep piling up upon.
What do you dislike about film as a medium?
Length is a huge factor. Typically they try to tell a story in an hour and a half to two hours; the enormous number of scenes left out of book to movie conversions is a testament to this. A lot of stories, frankly, need more time than that. Treatment of characters tends to be shallow in comparison to written works and full out series. It's difficult to be subtle about details in a movie, as there are typically a lot more visual details to be found than in written works, so it is difficult to draw attention to a particular detail without putting too much emphasis on it and bludgeoning the watcher over the head with it. Non-animated movies are heavily limited by their budgets and how believable their can make their CGI effects, while a writer has no such concerns. But really, the time aspect is the big one; you have to make the watcher learn about a character and like them in a brief span of time, and trying to do this with more than a couple characters becomes less and less possible under this constraint. And even worse is time to explore side concepts that are not immediately related from the actual story. Some movies can do this well, but the examples are pretty rare compared to the legions of books that have come out since movies hit it big, let along before.
Do you play any instruments? If you don't, which instrument would you like to play?
I have no musical talent at all. I'd like to play the accordion, so I could get my Zydeco on.
What was so bad about Reaganomics?
Without going into too much detail, it ignores a lot of previously established economic knowledge on the faithful hope that free market will do good because the free market is innately good. Unfortunately, the truth is that the free market is a blind idiot god, and those who steer it are generally not interested in helping everyone along; for instance you can look at how real wages have stayed pretty much the same that they were, on average, throughout the aughts. As such, they exist largely as a measure to speed up the stratification of wealth, while removing things that help the poor and unfortunate to have a decent standard of life.
Do you prefer reading manga or watching anime?
Yes. I usually enjoy both.
What is your opinion on Dubya?
I'm going to take this in a slightly different direction. GW Bush had some good thoughts on immigration reform, particularly with giving a blanket amnesty to illegals (one of the very few good things Reagan did), and advocated it even though it is highly unpopular within his party. As well, BW Bush himself (not his administration, I should note) made geniune attempts to reach out to Muslims and made efforts to keep all muslims from being branded as terrorists, traitors, and generally being viewed like Jews were in 1930s Germany. His party, however, undermined that greatly.
Everything else GW Bush did? Fuck him. Fuck him with a bat.
Oh, so it DID turn out better than expected! I thought they had you breaking rocks and peeling potatoes to pay off the debt.If you say so.
I have no doubt they'd take my organs or toss me into a debtor's prison if they could. If not the hospital itself, than definitely the collection agency.
If you say so. My general impression was always just the opposite, though. Oh well.
Finding a good group is hella important, and it helps if they're not using a twink-out system like DnD. It can quickly go to hell with influential moron.
Anywho, any interest in sports/sports teams?
Practically none. I do try to listen attentively if people talk at me about sports, and figure out enough things to be half-decent to converse at. And I do love crowd energy. For instance, I didn't really care at all for the World Cup last summer, but I did very enjoy all the genuine and unreserved excitement around it, which is why I didn't mind a bit when #meido would become soccer chat for long periods of time. Even if it's not my thing, seeing my friends openly and excitedly enjoying something does my bitter old heart some good.
And since I wanna ask a dopey question, can you dance the lambada - the forbidden dance?
Not yet.
