It is a weekend of pure, unfiltered Northern Hemisphere Pride. Starting with Canada Day.

Next time, I swear I will be in Vancouver. And drunk. Instead of neither.

(cries)

Anyone likely to be reading this knows I'm a fan of The Nostalgia Critic. A better than average youtube nerd who went viral, then entrepreneurial, and now runs a hub where geeks compete to be hired, so that they can review pop culture and nerd media, in his style, for pay.

And what the fuck have we done lately? 

He also put up the vid that made me interested in Michael Jackson. As a suburban white boy born after his high point, I had only been exposed to the tabloid stuff. I'd never seen a music video all the way through. I didn't know he even wrote his own hits.

So whenever I think about MJ, I have this suprisingly fair and funny take to start from.

... all that, but mostly I can't stop saying "Jamon Jamon Jamon!"

~ 

These are the worst ads ever made.

First, they're not for anything. When Chevron and ExxonMobile and Phillip Morris make "brand buff" ads, it's because their goods are fungible. And to combat public perception that they own doom fortresses and kill our children. Microsoft sells software. They sell software bundles and software support. They have fucking product. Microsoft is not a store you go into for social comfort. If you have a task, they need to advertise the product that meets this task. Which they at least hint at in their other, barely less stupid ads. 

I need a computer that is good at only one thing! I don't know why! 

Second, they're not hip. Fast-associating visuals with your text has been a language for decades. Music videos, modern art, bitchy game critics ... hell, a DJ booth with an LCD ... a fucking screen saver are canvasses to guide thought with associative imagery.

In all of these, the key is to be obvious. Surprisingly obvious. Combining the word "liberation" (a political context) with a picture of a rodent bursting fron the ground (a physical effort) rewards the viewer because it mirrors what her brain is doing. Fleshing out an idea by linking it to a specific, intimate image. Usually a memory. Or a response common enough to communicate a memory. 

Here. Like this.

Turning corporate babble, like "stay ahead of the dog pack", into a wave of water with dog mouths, to serve your already-strained surfing analogy, is the exact opposite thing. It's forcing unintuitive, overly-stylized thoughts on a brain that would never think them. It's like running up to a stranger and arguing that elephants are green. Or punching him in the mouth.

Surprising? Edgy? Maybe. But not welcome.

Last, these ads don't give the viewer anything to do. If I want to taste the rainbow, I know where I can buy Skittles. I know what they cost. I know which hole to put them in mostly. But when you're done hearing the stock phrases mouthed by the CEO pitchman and you've watched the last cherry bomb explode into a hat rack with pie charts instead of hats ... what the fuck do you do? Do you go behind the counter of the cake shop you own, call 1-800-Microsoft and request "technology"?

No. Because if your cake shop is still in business, you're not that much of an idiot.

You've done your own needs evaluations and don't wait around for other companies to invite you to do research on your own time to find out what the hell they do and whether it does anything for you. You're a little too busy to do providers' work for them at the behest of ugly matte paintings that yell at you while you're trying to watch The Daily Show.

Microsoft is spending a lot of money to make noise at us. I'm trying to figure out why.

~

Birds gotta fly, bears gotta dance, and the Islamic Republic has to abduct a bitch.

I'd say that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of the original embassy stormers, has "come full circle." But that would be out of date. For thirty long, passive-aggressive years, this regime has responded to every crisis and internal contradiction by taking more hostages than a Bond villain, and milking the chaos.

Their recent string of hits has been impressive. Remember the last pre-recession dip in oil prices? You may know it better as the July War. Where Iran got nearly everyone in the region* fighting over a few Israeli soldiers they grabbed.

Or the very next year, when British success in policing Basra threatened to co-opt some Shia support? That got re-branded the Royal Navy Hostage Crisis. God damn the Imperialists and up with our inflatable navy! 

Even this election crisis started with a hostage. I loved the radio news about this story because everyone sounded so bored. Something happens in Iran, Some westerner's in a van. It's like looking at the ocean and wondering if the fish will fuck.

I can't swim! 

So will this work on their own people? Not likely. That pre-election Yankee Spy trick did nothing. Obama has two brain cells to rub together, so he's not stumbling into the fight. And the best these tired old robe models could get were "collaborators." Not even real white meat.

And there's something unconvincing about showing off "collaborators" when the people you're trying to distract are accused of being the same.

But can you blame these guys? It's all they know how to do.

~

*Including ourselves. See that point marked "Sunni Awakening?" That was realated to the spike in violence by Shia (as in Hezbollah-funded, as in Iranian) gangs as part of the July fracas. It's almost like things relate to other things! Gosh! 

But no less called for.

~

The proof keeps coming that maybe we shouldn't hand giant bags of money to lifeless monomaniacs whose only goal is to get in the news every month.

PETA is now blackmailing those Pike Place Market guys who throw fish (and should be given their own sporting league). PETA are demanding that unless they refuse to perform for a veterinary conference, that they will picket the market, then stalk and picket the homes of any doctor who participates.

Their demand? Use rubber fish instead.

...

Imagine if you got up every morning and this was your life. No really, you have to. I can't, because I'd kill myself.

What bugs me most about this nonsense is that ST lede. Like it's strange or ironic for PETA to be against veterinarians. It's one of those lazy media assumptions groups like this thrive on.

Look, PETA is the enemy of both vets and humane societies. They are the enemy of doctors. They are the enemies of medical science itself. And if you read more than 5 pages into their core documents, they have major problems with this thing called human civilization.

They are stone. Cold. Fuck. Nuts.

And the only way they express themselves is to run in front of cameras and mess with some poor chump's life, like they're the goddamn Spanish Inquisition. But for fish.

YHWH, Gaia, whoever's out there ... please feed these people to something. 

Preferably something cute.

It's been a rough week. So no obscura this time.

Everybody!

~

If this question totally destroys the entire neocon plan for our world, it's just because it's the best question ever. And it destroys a lot of things.

(What would have been a Post-Soviet Man, for instance? Why in ten thousand pages did no one ever get to that?)

If suppression of Iranian popular will allows for Israel to drag the US into 2,000 more square miles of warfare, on an urban scale that makes Basra look like one of the farm missions in X-Com ... then what? 

If we need to treat all of these peoples as enemies, forever, no matter what they do, and remember the threat is supposed to be "they're" outbreeding "us" ... then what? 

The policy of the Serious People is getting very MacBeth-ish. When objective evidence screams that civilization war is not the only way, that there are better, bigger, more Machiavellian ways for the US to get out on top ... the only choice is to discard the evidence. A million (20) years ago, it was laid down that there was to be one plan for the future of the human race, and far be it for watchers of the actual human race to question that.

...

The alternate title for this post was "Get Her!"

The first publication to use that headline has my love.

.

ED NOTE: this week's BSOW is just turrable

I know I've gone on record before with this but I don't dance. Like at all^sd1. I just am too self-conscious^sd2 to even attempt to dance while sober and in front of other people. But it is important to this story. Obliquely, at least

Anyhoo, back in college, I had a crush on this girl who we'll call Serena^sd3. For like a while^sd4. In contrast to the rest of my crushes during this era^sd5, I rarely saw Serena. I mean, we had maybe a couple of classes together early, and of course in the dining halls every now and again. But she seemed like she was rarely around.

Fast Forward to 2005, after a series of (extremely unlikely events that led to me to hanging out at the Beta Acland semi-regularly^sd6. I was there one night during Senior week hanging out, and for some reason the conversation turned to Serena. It seemed as though everyone else there had the same general feeling about her: that she was comely, but unattainable. She just didn't--or wouldn't-- talk to anyone on campus. After a while, and with enormous amounts of liquid courage I^sd7 decided to go next door (which, conveniently, is where she lived) and talk to her. So we knocked on the door and her sister answered. Being that I was drunk (and that it was like 4 years ago now I don't remember what I talked with her about), I do remember that I told her who I was, and that I wanted to talk to Serena, who she said was upstairs asleep. Or something. I then told her about how I had a crush on Serena for like 3 years, yet was scared to tell her for numerous reasons^sd8. The primary one being that I was afraid she wouldn't remember me. After chatting for about 2 or 3 minutes, I turned to leave.

As I was walking back to the Acland, Serena said "I remember you Alan^sd9." So we talked for a while, I'm pretty sure I told her I had a crush on her then I left and went home or to drink more or something. Actually, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Anyhoo, the next night was "80s dance party night" and "Midnight Breakfast" . Seeing as I don't dance, I went for the breakfast option. Because bacon and hash browns are good at any time of day. But especially at like midnight. But, because I have a crippling addiction to 80s Power Pop^sd10 I went upstairs to listen for a while. And, because there wouldn't actually be a point in telling you this if it was otherwise, Serena was there. We look at each other. I went over to talk to her for a while (while, natch, this song was playing), and then I left to go play Kings.

Not the most exciting story in the world, I know, but it is the reason why this song is in my head every three months or so.

Take Me Home Tonight - Eddie Money (f. Ronnie Spector)

Eddie Money (f. Ronnie Spector)
Take Me Home Tonight
Can't Hold Back