Market Research

I've been doing extensive (and I do mean extensive) market research at my target audience for this blog because frankly I don't advertise so I'm kind of curious about how the literally dozens of unique hits per week (recent spike in activity ahoy!) found out about this travesty.
The number one audience, unsurprisingly, is the United States of America. Apparently the bile I spew about 'Murikuh hit a patriotic cord.
Second biggest audience?
France.
No I don't understand it either. I did find a new love for France teaching French class (a school I substitute for frequently seems to be under the mistaken impression I know French and I'm not about to tell them they're wrong) but I'm pretty sure I have called them cowards or surrender monkeys or something on this blog before.
Either way I'm sure my puerile hatred of Europe has found a place in their heart.
The third biggest market is the kicker: China.
My love for Asian women is well known but I somehow doubt that translated. I'm guessing some sort of marketing scheme.
Or maybe my pure hatred for corruption and ineffectual governments has struck a cord of love in the Middle Kingdom.
I can't say.
What I do know is 41% of you are reading this on Internet Explorer. What is wrong with you, friend?
1% of you are on Safari. You can stop reading as far as I'm concerned.
The fourth and fifth biggest markets (Ukraine [what] and Sweden) lag so far behind the three big ones it doesn't bear mentioning.
Anyway I'm just putting off having to review a blog.
I've done some extra homework for once and once I heard George Zimmerman was found not guilty I immediately went to Dreamwidh to find the biggest twat whinging about it and it didn't take long.
This wahm won a spot for Monday's update largely based on two criteria: her infantile whining about George Zimmerman and social justice and in addition her love for the movie Pacific Rim.
I had just seen that piece of shit so that kind of brought my piss to a boil.

What the verdict tells us is, to the astonishment of tens of millions of us, that you can go looking for trouble in Florida, with a gun and a great deal of racial bias, and you can find that trouble, and you can act upon that trouble in a way that leaves a young man dead, and none of it guarantees that you will be convicted of a crime.

I was interested to see how Dreamwidth would handle this.
On one hand booo perceived racism but on the other hand yaaaaay all women jury.
As we all know no one on Dreamwidth can be happy and just not whine so I reckoned early on if he was found guilty it'd be a "hurrah check your privilege white man" but if he'd been found not guilty it'd have been "boo racism :(" either way they get to whine.
I don't care about this trial, frankly. I was interested from a purely sociological standpoint.

This case was pretty open and shut as you can get, ladies and gentlemen whom are not listening to this post in the least. I've seen Black men and women convicted on almost little no evidence for shit that don't even have anything to do with murder and manslaughter, but this motherfucker gets off without so much as a Manslaughter charge for stalking and killing a young man in cold blood because he needed get off on his gun. That and no one thought to charge his ass with it. The verdict doesn't surprise me, but that doesn't mean I can't be fucking angry about it. Thanks for reminding me what my position in this white driven society is, America. I sure as hell don't mean shit if Zimmerman can avoid not guilty and manslaughter charges for killing a young man for merely existing in Florida.

I guess she's black?
I don't know. It's hard to tell with women on Dreamdwidth. They'll appropriate any cause they feel will get them sympathy points for being a victim.
It honestly wouldn't surprise me if this turned into a "well if this happens to a man imagine what happens to women".

Blog: Words Fail me right now. I will get academic later, though. PACIFICRIMISTHEWINNER!

It was a huge piece of shit. Insipid dialogue, nonexistent characterization, poorly framed, cartoonish action and plot twists so stupid it actually made me stupid watching.

Idris Elba was the King of the movie and Rinko Kikuchi was the Queen. 

The part that pisses me off is it should have been a slam dunk. White guy pilots giant robots and then bangs Asian chicks.
It's basically what goes on in my head 24/7 but no, they somehow fucked up the easiest movie on earth to make.

First world problems: The closest one in my area decided it wasn't going to have any showings of Pacific Rim period. Fucking A, Mr. Convenience, you had to choose the one day I wanna go to a premiere to be Mr. Inconvenience, did you?

The theater I went to accidentally started showing Man of Steel.
I feel like it was warning me. "You don't know it now but you'd rather sit through this turd again."
It's true. If I'm a captive audience at a theater I'd rather sit through that again than Pacific Rim.

We’ve all always suspected that Johnny Depp’s portrayal of the pidgin English-speaking wildman Tonto in ‘The Lone Ranger’ might be more than a little racist, but now that we have an abundance of official images to go on, we can say conclusively that yep, this character is offensive as hell. 

Don't worry the movie sucks hard.
Pacific Rim was so bad guys--
I think I'd rather sit through Lone Ranger again.
That's how bad it was I'm dead fucking serious.

SO IT WOULD APPEAR Pacific Rim is about to suffer the same problem Remember Me experienced as far as viewership and attendance goes. Those who somehow got a hold of its tracking announce that its being beaten out by the worse comedian ever and his sequel to his equally awful movie, Adam Sandler. 

Remember Me?
The video game?
That like 5 people played and is already 40% off on the Steam Sale (still not spending 30 dollars on it)?

I'm wishing that Aisha Tyler had been considered for Lois Lane in "Man of Steel". Lord knows she's got the looks, the personality and the passion to pull the character off without a hitch. Problem is, she'd just be stuck with the same bland interpretation of the character from David Goyer Amy Adams had to deal with.

Not sure the American audience is ready for Superman to go interracial.
She is a lot hotter than that 5/10 white wahm they went with though but that seems to be what the American people demand so who am I to judge?
... Seriously I bet you people just read right through that sentence without another thought.
"Who am I to judge?"
I JUDGE ALL.
Holy shit she did mean Remember Me the video game and not some movie I've never heard of.
Who gives a fuck?

Kotaku.com tends teeter on the edge of offensive to rare-moments-of-clarity. This time its the first and not the latter and since this is coming from an author who appears to understand why it’s a big deal video games have Black protagonists or female protagonists in video games

That chick is black?
Are you fucking joking?
Black--
as in during character gen they picked the "not lily white" option, right?
What the fuck black person has blue eyes?

JEAN-MAXIME MORIS: No, we wanted Nilin to stand out. I think these sort of issues become self-fulfilling prophesies; people saying that only white males sell so then everyone only does white males. If you start believing these things, you get your head inside this cold marketing strategy that you cannot get your head around. It becomes a pretty fucking racist and misogynistic way of thinking about lead characters.

And 5 people  bought the game so I guess they were right.
White male protagonists let's do this shit.

It was their belief that Nilin’s status was a biracial woman (Black mother, white Father) should have no standing on her ability to stand as a the headliner of a game, that the belief as stated above is not only racist, but a misogynistic mantra that many won’t or do not challenge.

Kotaku.com’s Evan Narcisse attempts to argue the same under the pretense. However, he suggests that because “Remember Me” doesn’t discuss the issue of race and her status as biracial and female, this means that her being a Black Woman “doesn’t matter” in the role of a protagonist at all and it does.

See what I mean when I say don't waste your time with this piece of shit?
It's the future and I can inject other peoples' memories into my brain but the real issue here is what race the DNA the main character's mother got injected with.
Not, you know, the moral and ethical ramifications of injecting someone's memories into your brain.
I know virtually nothing about this game outside of a 3 minute Broteam review and the opening sentence of the Wikipedia page and already I can think of a handful of far more interesting issues than the pedigree of some slut:
1. how do I know my memories are my own if this technology exists?
2. what defines a memory?
3. what am I if not a collection of reactions to past things and a current interpretation of events based on those reactions?
4. Nostalgia is generally accepted to be a necessary emotion to keep down angst about the ever-changing definition of who you are (no one holds the exact same opinions they did when they were a child or even six months ago, for instance) so does that change if your memories aren't your own?
BUT NOPE, ALL THAT MATTERS IS THE MAIN CHARACTER IS A BIRACIAL WAHM.

A nice Cheerios advertisement whose only discernible difference from other Cheerios commercials is that it depicts an interracial family was forced to disable its YouTube comments section today after it became inundated with virulent racism. 

Genius.
Get everyone whining.
Personally I'd have an interracial transgender couple in my commercial.

I am biracial. My mom is black and my dad is white. My family often had the audacity to eat breakfast even though cereal was not being specifically marketed to us. When I was growing up, there were no families on television that resembled mine. My family was something of an anomaly in the overwhelmingly white neighborhood of Seattle where I lived. When I was with my mom, people would look at me and ask, “What is she?” When I was with my dad, people would ask, “Is she Italian?” 

Most Americans are part Italian.
Most of my ancestors were Roman, though.
Here's the character from that shitty video game.
Would you have ever guessed in a thousand years she was supposed to be part black?
Ignoring the fact the entire game has this shitty effect where everything looks like it was dipped in Tang but you can't even tell.
There's this thing called facial morphology and most video game makers haven't heard of it.

Capcom really needs to learn to divide its series up between different characters instead of pigeonholing the series to just Chris and Jill. Claire Redfield hasn't been seen in a primary game since Code Veronica, Rebecca Chambers and Billy Coen have all but fallen off the face of the Earth; the characters of Outbreak have yet to be seen in another game and the list goes on. Sheva (and Josh Stone) is just another in a long line of "new characters" to join the ranks of the unvisited after their initial showing. It's a shame, really, because she was one of the best parts of RE5 outside Excella.

People care about the plot of Resident Evil?
Since when?
Here's the plot of Resident Evil.
People care about that.

    Spleepoppetween wrote:
    People bitched about that pretty much because there's Black Africans in Africa that were being shot which is the dumbest thing I've heard, I doubt they're avoiding making a certain race of characters over a group of dumb people who made a dumb accusation.




Except that it wasn't bitching, a lot of it was pretty justified when you step back from the knee-jerk reaction of ''Resident Evil'' being deconstructed from a critical standpoint at all. Especially when the arguments were valid once you start looking at the social implications of a white character (Chris Redfield) and a light-skinned [West] African woman (Sheva Alomar) killing en masse her darker skinned counterparts.

Throw in how people in Africa are depicted as downtrodden "savages" in need of rescue from a white counter part and you've got a problematic recipe for disaster that most were right to point out. 

... They're not just shooting black people. They're shooting black people infected by some sort of fuck off leech zombie virus.
Here's a post bitching about how roleplaying always has to be about two gay guys in a romantic relationship and why can't they just be friends?
Because you're dealing with a group of people with 0 social interaction. That's why.

All are modeled after women of color. Not that this is an important part of any of their identities, but it’s still a very conscious choice on the developer’s parts in an industry where anything but ‘white male’ is an other. The few earlier, well-established video game women are all white (ex. Samus Aran, Lara Croft, Joanna Dark, Sarah Kerrigan).

Lara Craft is actually half black and looks it, unlike the other game you were mentioning.
Do you even play video games?
Samus Aran is also like 6'7" or something ridiculous and can fold herself into a ball (bending her spine the wrong way) so I suspect she's a different species.

Inspired by Anita Sarkeesian’s Video Game Tropes vs Women, I wanted to pitch a Zelda game where Zelda herself was the hero, rescuing a Prince Link.

Shiek was Zelda in disguise and Shiek basically saved Link's stupid ass throughout all of Ocarina of Time.
Do you people even play video games?
Ha, ha here's something asking me to take a pledge: "gamers against bigotry".
No and thank you. That'll get in the way of the killing.
Nonstop whining about video games and black people--
Nonstop whining about video games and women--
All right I've decided I'm done with this shit.

It keeps happening

Dreamwidth is really abusive with this adult content filter trigger warning thing.
Literally every single post.
Why did they think that was a good idea?
Click entry.
Agree I'm still 18+.
Wait for entry to load.
Imagine if you were still on dialup?

This morning, after a great trip to the gym which very much helped with the pain I've been in since Saturday, I was overcome by a wave of sadness. As per my mental health plan I've let my people know and they're supporting me. Behind the cut I'm going to write out what's wrong and see if writing it out equals getting it out. 

I've missed this.
The self indulgent whining.
It was so lacking on Livejournal anymore.

I fucking hate MS. I hate it. I hate that any bit of stress or upheaval or even a fucking cold causes me to have a pseudo-exacerbation. I feel as if I haven't been well since the actual exacerbation I had in August and except for Jen's wedding and a few days before Thanksgiving that's true. I feel like shit all the damn time and I'm sick of it. 

I know. Fuck Microsoft.
What the hell were they thinking with Windows 8?
I like a lot of the background things they did. The way they handle file management now is nice and resembles Office more now so that's cool.
That start bar thing just kills it.
Why click start and go through a drop down menu when you can open a fullscreen display of all your apps in block form that rearranges itself for no clear reason?
Yeah that's easy.

I emailed my MS Nurse yesterday to talk to her about yet another MS symptom. Yes, we'll be treating it, and yes, that's a good thing, but I really did not want to have to take another pill. That'll be 17 per day if you're counting. Once I get onto BG-12 it'll be 19 per day. Maybe we can find a pill that works to manage my fatigue like amantadine didn't and make it an even 20. Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Okay I've had enough of this entry.
Moving right along--

The Following: The Curse

That's the name of a TV show.
The Following: The Curse.
The Following: The Curse: The Revenge.
How many more cliches can you tack on?
How awkward a name is that?
The Following The Curse.
How about Curse: The Following?
I mean that's blatantly stupid too but at least you don't have redundancy in your articles.
Maybe the producers were concerned that would sound like an imperative?
Like CURSE THE FOLLOWING?
I dunno.
I can't imagine they thought at all though if they went with a four word title and half of it is the word "the".

I am loving watching everyone fall apart. First Emma and Roderick were battling for power, to be second in command. Jacob is getting some power, way more than he ever had, and he is not pleased with Emma any longer. 

Oh. Apparently the show is just called "The Following".
Starring Kevin Bacon as a vampire.
Wow.
POEM TIME.

Death is nothing at all

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Err, what?
Isn't death kind of the great nothingness?
The great equalizer?
All are and then all are not?
Is that even what happens?
Just you are and then you aren't any more?
I mean probably.
Why does my writing now look like a poem?
I'm not writing a poem, fuck you.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

SHE DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING WRITE THIS.
THIS IS A REAL POEM THEY PUT IN A CANON.
I remember doing that once.
I wrote a poem, read it along 3 other "modern classics" and had an audience identify the one I had written.
Protip: they couldn't fucking do it.
Other fun games you can play with a modern poetry class:
slip in lyrics from Offspring songs into really emo poems that are "oh so deep" written by angry lesbians in the 50s.
Most audiences can't tell the difference.
What else did I do in that class to troll the shit out of people?
Oh we had to read a poem written by an author.
I found a poem entitled "Al Green" and read that.
It was a poem, I'm not joking, about how awesome Al Green is.
That's in a book of poetry.
It even contains the line "Al Green is the motherfucker".
Whenever we did poetry readings my goal was just to read the poem that had the most instances of the word "fuck".
I remember one poem was written by a soldier in Iraq about how he shot the fuck out of some Commies.
That poem was cool.
Then the guy actually came into the class.
That class was pretty neat, actually.
Saying fuck a lot in front of 75 people in an academic setting
trolling snowflakes
whatever, man.

I need a distraction. What do you all have that's funny or awesome? Am I hearing that FOB has a video? What else?

The complete works of Gaius Valerius Catullus.

People say Roman poetry is too high minded and stiff.

I implore you to find a funnier line in poetry than:

Oh what a funny thing, Cato, and a jest,
and worthy of your laughter and ears!
Laugh as much as you love Catullus, Cato:
the thing is funny and very much a joke.
I just caught a little boy thrusting away
into a girl; I banged him, if it please Dione,
with my boner like a spear.

WITH MY BONER

LIKE A SPEAR.

I don't even know what the fuck he's talking about.

YOU MADE FUN OF ME CATO

WELL I'LL SHOW YOU

I'LL FUCK THIS GUY WHILE HE'S FUCKING A CHICK!
Like what's wrong with you, man?

A lot of his poetry reads like that.

Like he's so angry he doesn't even know what the fuck he's saying anymore.

I beg you, my sweet, my Ipsitilla,
my darling, my sophisticated beauty,
summon me to a midday assignation;
and, if you're willing, do me one big favor:
don't let another client shoot the door bolt,
and don't decide to suddenly go cruising,
but stay at home & get yourself all ready
for nine - yes, nine - successive copulations!
Honestly, if you want it, give the order:
I've eaten, and I'm sated, supinated!
My prick is poking through my cloak and tunic.

Here's another one about how a prostitute he knows gives him a huge boner--

There's literally dozens of these poems.

READY YOUR BODY

BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO FUCK

NIIIIIINE TIMES!
Just what every woman wants to hear.

Oh right.

Blogs.

Sorry this kind of turned into a case study of a Roman poet.

Much more interesting, honestly.

And finally I've figured out what's been nagging at me all day. I'm considering letting someone back into my life. I suspect that person will not understand the limitations my MS places on me and my relationships. I've actually already had evidence of this. My instincts are telling me this will not work and to back away quickly. But that seems unfair. I'm not particularly asking for advice but I certainly won't turn down any words of wisdom or commiseration.

See what I mean?
What would you rather read?

Spider Stories follows the tale of Princess Zahara who is thrown into hiding after the royal family is overthrown by a corrupt neighboring kingdom. While traveling with a misfit caravan of merchants she meets a wandering drummer griot who introduces her to the spirit world. Armed with a mystical staff, the fearless princess embarks on quest to reconnect with the spirits, reunite her homeland, and reclaim the throne.

We are developing an 11 minute animated pilot for a fantasy adventure series called Spider Stories. Your pledges will go towards funding a team of animators to get it done at a professional level of quality.

Wow

I can pay to have the most cliche story ever turned into an 11 minute animation.

How much money do you need?
SIGN ME UP UH HUH HUH

Is your body ready?
They raised 35,000 dollars.

I've been watching Zero Hour and enjoying it. That sort of Nazi-occult-religious stuff is right up my alley. But, oh my god, could we check our privilege for five seconds? 

CHECK YOUR

FUCKING PRIVILEGE CIS WHINE BAGS

She just unironically used the term "check your privilege"

it fucking happened

I saw it

Our Hero, the White Dude, wants to know if the Elderly Indian Female Mystic has a birthmark. Instead of asking her, he licks his finger and wipes make up off her face. Are you fucking kidding me? Her body is not yours, asshole! She's a fucking person. You wiped your spit on her!

It's a TV show, dipshit.

I'm sure the creators aren't telling you to spit on old Indian women as white men.

My stepmother continued to post in the same vein all day. I deleted her posts, unfriended her, and blocked her. I can't have her in my life.

I didn't realize how much this would trigger me. My jaw aches so much right now from clenching it all day. I feel safe again now that I know she can't get to me that way.

I'm so grateful for the people who talked me through all this today.

TRIGGER WARNING: STEP MOM

I remembered what I wanted to talk about. Aubagio's drug clearance is two years. That means it's inside you for two years after you stop taking it. Dr. Neuro says the procedure to clear it from your body is horrible and she isn't actually sure the human body can tolerate it. There are big deal warnings about getting pregnant while taking Aubagio. She strongly warned me about this. 

"Oh okay thanks doc"

END OF DISCUSSION.

I told her I've been married for 23 years and have not had children because it was decided before marriage that we did not want them. (I've never wanted children, I've always wanted to be an aunt and a mentor. This goes back to my childhood while playing with baby dolls. I was never the mother.) And I flat out told her that if I were to become pregnant I would abort, Aubagio or no.

"Oh wow two years, huh. I'll be sure not to get knocked up."

And she said "you might change your mind once you're pregnant."

Well, I suppose I might. I'm sure there's some tiny percentage that says I might. But I think my desire to not ever raise a child is pretty clear. Since I've become ill with MS I've several times said I'm thankful I'd always felt this way because as of right now I could not raise a child. (Also, I am 44 years old. I'm getting a bit on in years for this am I not? If I wanted a baby now I'd likely be concentrating on that.)

This bothers me. This is the typical stuff I hear all the time from people. Why can no one respect my decision?

JUST SAY OKAY AND MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIFE
JESUS CHRIST.

LAST TIME I WENT TO THE DOCTOR HE WANTED TO FEEL MY BALLS

AND I LET HIM
AND I'M NOT WHINING ABOUT IT.

Checking for a hernia, right.

I didn't know how much my job hinged on me allowing a physical, though, so I went for it.

Short-tempered today. Woke up ill in the night. Managed to not yell at someone on FB but it was a near thing.

(Don't follow the news. Don't google when you have a question. No, don't do any of that. Just complain about how They are taking All Your Stuff. Them. With their Free Ride.)

See? A very near thing.

If any of you giga queers has pyerite in EVE Online deliver it to Hostni VII, Moon 18- DED Assembly Plant and I'll pay you in GOOOOLD.

I'm making rockets.

Mjolnir High Precision Heavy Rockets.

Tight profit margins but I feel it'll be worth it in June.

Oh Jesus she even has something called a snowflake challenge.

I DEFY YOU TO BE MORE OF A TWAT.

snowflake_challenge Day 9: In your own space, create a fanwork. A drabble, a ficlet, a podfic, or an icon, art or meta or a rec list. A picspam. Something. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Not gonna happen.

SNOWFLAKE CHALLENGE

HOW SPECIAL ARE YOU?

Oh forget it.

I'm gonna go space mine.