You know the feeling: you’re sitting around in the sub-sub-basement of a scrap metal dealer’s unmarked office.   Russian Roulette went smoothly enough, as did Russian Hungry Hungry Hippos. You’ve survived all of the deadly games of chance they’ve thrown at you, and you’re feeling pretty good about that. All in all, it’s shaping up to be a pretty good day, probably, if it is still daytime, but maybe not, if it isn’t. We’ve all been there.Then, you make one little flippant remark about a guy’s facial tattoo and all of a sudden BAM! Wolves … I mean, shuriken …stabbing you in the eyes with their sharp pointy edges. What began as a simple, harmless remark to taunt some trained members of the Chinese mafia quickly becomes a fight to the death in a circle of fire. But at least it’s a fair fight, as you’re readily provided with a Japanese katana sword or possibly a falstaff. Then some guy goes and spoils it all by taking out a bag of shuriken.

No! Bad ninja! We live in a world with unspoken social contracts, and there are simply things that you don’t do. Don’t hit on your in-laws; don’t give coke to a donkey unless it’s Cinco de Mayo; never dance in the elevator.  And don’t, under *ANY* circumstances, fling tiny metal shards of throwing stars at your opponent in a round of consecutive one-on-one fights to the death. I mean, not cool man. Sure maybe in a dark alley or during an assassination attempt. That’s one thing. But in multiple, single set, combat with several assailants? For shame.

I think we’re all agreed that you and your bloodlusting shuriken death stars have no place in this quintet ensemble.  No one likes death by shuriken.

And don’t even think about giving me those puppy dog eyes, Brian.

Tags: Bloodlust, Ninja, Ninjae, Puppy dogs, Shuriken, Social contracts

Long ago, the great emperor Qin Shi Huang built the Great Wall of China — one of the greatest engineering feats in history, and a truly jaw-dropping monument.  It protected the fertile and densely populated lands of the Chinese empire from having Mongols show up at their front door.

Now this may seem pretty extreme, building a 5,500 mile-long wall just to keep some bearded guys on horses out of your ‘hood, but these guys weren’t some Jehovah’s Witnesses gently rapping on your door to talk about Jesus.  They can’t even be compared to biker gangs, another bunch of bearded dudes who loudly ride around the area lowering your property values.

No, these guys were fucking Mongols.  When they came to town, they burned and raped things.  Then, just to add to the indignity of it all, they probably totally cleaned out your cupboard.  Mongols sucked.

Today, though, there is a new Great Wall.  The Great Firewall of China.  It protects the Chinese populace from a new, horrible horrible menace.  What is it?  Mongols?  WMD’s?  Swine Flu?  Acid Reflux?  No!  It stops the greatest menace of the 21st century — bloggers!

Oh, those rampaging bloggers!  Spouting unsubstantiated claims about Brad and Angelina, sharing their cooking recipes, bitching about the weather, generally whining, etc.  The people must be protected from them!  We cannot let the populace read the dramatic prose of whining suburban teenagers!

See, I’ve been dealt a personal blow by this wall.  I have a blog for my travels, but I cannot update it while here in China.  You see, I mention the words “China” and “Tibet”.  Looks like I’m banned.  Mind you, I don’t say anything bad.  In fact, if given the chance, I’d wax prolifically about how great my time is here, how great a country China is to visit, and how surprisingly easy it is to travel in compared to 4 years ago.  But no, I’ve been blocked by the great internet bureaucracy in Beijing.  Apparently, The Party doesn’t want Chinese people to be able to read my rants about Indian taxi drivers or tales of mountain climbing.  Nope.

But then I find out that entire swathes of Wordpress and Blogspot are blocked out.  I want to read up about ramen noodle shops in Tokyo, my next destination.  Nope!  Can’t do that!  Most of the references are on blogs, so they’re blocked.  Really guys?  You don’t want your people to read about noodles?  They’re fucking noodles!!

So, in summery, I’m sure that right now some anal-retentive censor in Beijing is studiously blocking this site too.  It’s too bad, since now the Chinese won’t be able to read about the shitiness of Rum-Raisin Ice Cream, airport security, or The Family Fucking Circus.  Too bad.  As a blogger, of course, I take this shit personally.  Before, I was going to write nice things about China, and plan to come back again.  Now, I plan to get the hell out of here, and to take this out on Hu Jintao’s dog.

Meanwhile, Chinese people are denied access to such harmful information as a great chicken cacciatore recipe.  Good job guys.  And to that bureaucrat now reaching to block www.stuffnobodylikes.com from 1.3 billion pairs of eyeballs — think about it man.  C’mon.  We’re completely harmle

(this blogger has not been seen or heard from since writing the preceding rant.  Please contact the administrator for this site if a large, Irish, badger-like man is found wandering in Central Asia, looking glassy-eyed and mumbling about ramen noodles).

On ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos pressed House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) to explain what the Republican plan was to deal with climate change. Below is part of his response.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  What is the Republican plan to deal with carbon emissions, which every major scientific organization has said is contributing to climate change?
BOEHNER: George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen* that is harmful to our environment is almost comical.** Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide***. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do****, you’ve got more carbon dioxide*****. And so I think it’s clear…
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you don’t believe that greenhouse gases are a problem in creating climate change?
BOEHNER: … we’ve had climate change over the last 100 years — listen, it’s clear we’ve had change in our climate. The question is how much does man have to do with it, and what is the proper way to deal with this?
* say what now?
** your face is comical, asshat
*** ohhh. Well, PHEW! That certainly must make it fine, then! Because everything that comes from human beings can’t possibly harm the earth in any way!
**** Fart joke, folks
*****  technically flatulence is mostly composed of nitrogen, as well as smaller amounts of carbon dioxide and methane

——————–

I… I…. I… I almost don’t even NEED to write more. The comedic value of the above statement is intrinsic.
But I will write more:
John Boehner, you dumb bitch. Why do you hate science? Maybe you’re mad because your name sounds like should be pronounced same as the word that describes a male erection. Maybe this led to countless years of merciless teasing and taunting during your tender, blossoming, impressionable pre-teen years. Maybe this in turn led you to want to lash out, get even!!  But why you have chosen science as that target, I’ll never ever know. My suggestion: go find your 5th-grade enemy Joey Catalucci and give him a wedgie. That would be a far less deleterious way of getting your rage out. Perhaps you could team up with your fellow House Republican Dana Rohrabacher , who in 2007 famously declared: “We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows?“ Sounds like she has some anger issues that she too has chosen to take out on science too.

So, go ahead. Have a laugh, yuck it up. Stand defiant in the face of every major scientific authority and insist that you know better.  Meanwhile, those of us without a personal vendetta against science will be striving to save your collective sorry asses from a catastrophe that would be far more avoidable if our politicians would face facts, man up, and help pass legislation to reduce CO2 emissions not only at home but globally.

Tags: global warming, politicians

This is it, hero!  Xenu has taken the Citadel!  It’s up to you to get the Thetan-Child out alive if humanity is to have any hope for survival!  Also, the Thetan-Child has a bone-deep, insatiable desire to die and make it look like your fault.*

Fun Fact:Despite all of the press it’s been getting for the past twenty years or so, creating A.I. is still really hard, and even at its best is still a technology in its infancy.  One could prove this fact simply by looking around at the near-total lack of service droids in your apartment (at most you’ve got a roomba, and this is 2009; I mean, come on) but instead I’m going to focus on video games.  I could give you a number of compelling reasons for this, but they would be boring and academic and the truth is that I want to bitch about Escort Missions, I have some authority to talk about games, and you just want to get to the fart jokes more quickly (there will be no fart jokes.)

Anyway… what video games show us about the current state of A.I. is that it can work decently under limited circumstances so long as the programmer also has god-like control over every aspect of its universe as well.  In other words, it works within the confines of Kubric/Spielberg productions - and even then you get problems when it tries to love or act in any other way like Haley Joel Osment.

Video Games come very close, however, because the designers get to determine the game mechanics.  Most of the time, we as gamers don’t really see the seams or think about them too much.  Turn-based RPG’s can look at the situation like a chess-board; Sports titles have a rule-set and a limited number of formations to follow; and even Action/Adventure/Platform games are Player-vs.-NPC, where the enemy just needs to try to inflict as much damage upon you as possible while minimizing damage to himself. Not that programming that sort of A.I. is easy, mind you, but at least it’s easily within our capabilities to fathom how it can be done.

Where A.I. shows it’s weaknesses is in the dreaded Escort Mission, generally thrown into the middle of long games in order to break up the action and keep things from degenerating into just repetitive killing.  So instead of yet another mission asking you to kill everything that isn’t killed, you’re tasked with protecting someone important through a dangerous area.

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Tags: Haley Joel Osment, video games, Xenu