Precipitate Flood breaks her silence (to the regret of Martien Pontecorvo) and goes on about the Archer House, as well as neighours past and present.

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I’ve been spending far more time online sniffing out Flash games with my computer in the shop, and I’ve been repeatedly disappointed by the quality of comments on the sites.

Look folks — the comments box is for commenting on the game. It’s not for yawping the unfortunate fact of your existence to the masses.

Being the first to post a comment isn’t in and of itself noteworthy.

If you think a game “sucks”, at least take a breath and explain why. Is it the poorly thought out, unresponsive controls? The irregular difficulty curve? The annoying music or ugly graphics? What? (Oh, and I don’t suck if I like it, OK?)

If you think a game’s “great”, stop squealing, take a breath, and explain why. Controls well thought out and responsive? Snappy graphics? Unobtrusive music? Difficulty balanced just right?

Quizzes and chain letters aren’t comments. Don’t post them.

I don’t care about your score. Or your drama with that other moron who had the nerve to disagree with you. Take it to AIM or something. The world is not a giant Jerry Springer episode, and we are not the studio audience. I don’t mind a good dose of schadenfreude, but as with any other intoxicant I have my limits.

You’re on sites about games. And the game’s the thing.

Before I show you the picture, some background.

It’s some time in mid-2000, maybe 2001, I can’t remember. I’d just walked up to the Student Union Building at Vic from the railway station. And I see these pink stickers on the wall, on a railing, on an electrical junction box.

The rhetoric is out of the blue; a demand to put a halt to genetic engineering and vivisection. I took offense, however, at the anonymity of the stickering — who was this person, or group, issuing commands? And what was the meaning of this imperious, warlike language?

“Smash” rhetoric is idiocy squared. Sure, the average person’s initial reaction to something they don’t like is to want to get rid of it, preferably permanently. But it’s also infantile. This is university, after all, where the movers, discoverers and leaders of tomorrow go to learn, and think, and research not only where we are, how we got this way, where we are, could, and should be going. That involves discussions — two-way conversation — and being open to criticism.

Also, who were they? The stickers, as you will see, didn’t say. An imperious order, out of the pink.

I spoke back — out came my Bic and a quick retort: “Smash the dimwits who think this sort of thing’s clever.”

Months go by. Schlepping up the slope again, backpack groaning with books, and now the pink is accompanied by green. The anarchists are trumpeting their shoddy utopian wares.

And I have been muzzled! The sticker-placer deliberately stuck a sticker over my remark!

Carefully, I removed both stickers. Equally carefully, I prised them apart. Alas! The anarchists’ hatred of dissent was transmitted to the adhesive, and only with much sundering of pigment did they come free. My writing, now interrupted, is still somewhat visible, however.

Only today did I get around to scanning these labels. And here they are.

America must be destroyed.

I mean, I was hoping that Obama would have a chance to get elected and either raise the IQ of the country or show his true colours, but I’m afraid America, like China, Africa, the Middle East, and most other third world countries, must regrettably be sacrificed for the good of the human race, and reduced to a trinitite glaze.

The reason? Simple. The administration at Terry Fox Elementary in Barrie Ontario called Children’s Aid on Colleen Leduc and accused her of allowing her autistic daughter to be sexually assaulted. They based the accusation on something a psychic told the special ed worker who worked with the kid. (from Boing Boing

Now, I understand, however wrongly, that the school system (if you can call it that) in the US is terrified of lawsuits, probably because all the money gets spent on sports or something. So naturally they turn schools into jails (in order to Protect The Children™) and make it almost impossible to teach anything except that Authority Is An Ass.

I salute Colleen Leduc in having the wisdom to collect the evidence that refuted these charlatans’ accusations. I castigate the nation that has allowed the education system to become so terrified of blame that it takes the word of frauds and shysters; that has allowed the profession of law to become a playground for vendetta and irresponsibility; that has allowed democratic politics to become a mere “ballotocracy” buffeted by the flatulent winds of punditry and lobbying; that has allowed citizenship to become a fragmented serfdom. I could go on.

If anyone wants me, I shall be in the asteroid belt, slinging choice bits of rock sunward.

According to the Second Life Herald, some idiots calling themselves “DiSSENTiON” (sic) launched an Anonymous-style Youtube video and another griefing attack as part of their campaign (in our best interests, naturally) to prevent Linden Lab from doing things. Somehow I doubt that their plans match up to the griefers’ self-righteous twaddle.

Still, the first link has some nice pictures, and you have to give them some kudos for blending old-skool spamcubes with the speech synthesiser and Youtube thing. But at the same time, it’s still boring old griefing.

In any case, I hereby put myself on their list of target by stating explicitly that the group known as DiSSENTiON does not and never will speak for me. I dissent, as it were, from DiSSENTiON.

For some time, I have seriously despised what the marketroids have done to Coco, the familiar cartoon character who for years has promoted the consumption of chocolate flavoured rice bubbles.

While Googling for images of more approachable Cocos past, I found this blog entry which both has the images involved, and expresses part of my disdain.

The other part is that the modern Coco looks evil. It’s not so much the overstylised and oversimplified linework, it’s the teeny, slanting, almond-eyes. This is a Coco who spikes your obesity fodder with glass, I’ll bet. (Evidently death by insulin coma isn’t quick enough for the little simian.)

I just had to delete two (and the only) comments on my image galleries due to them being spam.

Fortunately the BTT proper seems to be pretty much free of spam so far. I guess I’ll have to look for a plugin for address or IP banning for Plogger some time if it gets worse.

Moral for site owners who permit comments: set email notifications to “on.”

And who or what thinks that rhetorical questions appended to unrelated imagery is a good way to advertise? Honestly, I can smell the idiocy from here. It smells like Nigerian scam. It also has the shape of an ad farm.

My LJ post on this shock discovery is pithier, but I have reason to be so irate.

Part of the appeal of Ted “Dr Seuss” Geisel’s work is the distinct and idiosyncratic art style that accompanied the text. The slightly wonky, fisheye perspectives, the fanciful landscapes and creatures that populated them, and a general cushiony feel that softened the — now I reflect on it — often hard lessons taught. It was a style that was imagination made flesh.

Unfortunately, the money men have decided that it’s time that Horton got an update — and a 3D makeover. This, frankly, angers me. Why in all the circles of Hell (including this one, the Zeroth) does everything have to be a) computer animated and b) 3D and c) voiced by insensitive big-name assholes!?

Besides, this feels like a skit turned into an opera. It’s guaranteed to bewilder the current generation of imagination-deficient consumers, who will find the original book and turn its pages with increasing disorientation and bewilderment since they lack the cognitive skills to associate Seuss’ Horton with Big Entertainment’s version. It’s guaranteed to come with a diarrhea of tie-in merchandise. And, as you’ve guessed, it’s guaranteed to offend us nostalgiasaurs who should really just shut up and die and pave the way for the next wave of mentally insipid bipeds to contentedly graze on increasingly watered-down and culturally deficient entertainment.

I’ve been hearing about Jumper, the movie based far too loosely on the SF novel by Steven Gould — so you already know I am dead certain the film is nothing more than a load of tripe, served Hollywood style.

Then again, the book is from the early 90s. I mean, there’s nothing sexy about being chased by the FBI, and foiling pre-9/11-era hijacking attempts would have the audience rolling their eyes these days.

Local opinion columnist Joe Bennett has had the misfortune of seeing it, and wrote a hilarious column on how the pitch must have gone, albeit without mentioning Mr Gould that I could see.

Mind you, when I heard about the inclusion of Paladins and age-old wars, I knew I wasn’t wasting my money on this film.

I don’t mind “based on”, but for pity’s sake, try to be faithful to the original material — and not just the name!

A small, but possibly expanding, collection of reasons why the Xists haven’t Ruptured away all us SubGenii yet.

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