Nestor's Cola

I believe in a largely abstract statement: “Humanity, fuck yeah!” rather than in powers and principalities. If I had a faith, then the faith would be in the form and function of mankind.

When I was younger, a science teacher once mentioned that it had been proven that each generation of people become smarter, more aware, and more perceptive of the world around them than the preceding one. My work in the IT field has reinforced this concept. While the generation of the people that came before me in the IT field has demonstrated a specific level of knowledge and application, my own knowledge and experience dwarfs those. Likewise, the younger generation that is slowly rearing its head behind me has demonstrated a technical aptitude that dwarfs my own. We are, as a species, getting smarter with each passing generation.

You can see the advancement of humanity through works of art as well. From crude charcoal drawings of animals on cave walls to massive works of art that dwarf us in size and scopes. Mammoth statues dedicated to concepts and ideologies. Works of music that penetrate through the veil of time to reward us with beautiful and abstract representations of emotion and sensation.

Likewise, we have discovered new and ingenious ways to kill each other. From sticks and rocks to engineered plagues and nuclear weapons, the drive to overcome, the drive to assert ourselves over each other and our environment can also be praised.

Human nature itself is worthy of our praise. Whether we use it to destroy and bring low or build up and exalt, to compose or to butcher, that force of will is worthy of my respect. I can’t think of any stronger or more dynamic force than that of human history. Because of human will we have driven species to extinction, mapped the entirety of our world, created forms of travel that exceed our biological limitations- we have even begun to step beyond our world. Yet beyond that we have barely begun to scratch the surface of our potential.

We’ve made gods in our own image- from fickle and capricious gods that demand sacrifices and war, to compassionate gods that ask for nothing but that we believe, we’ve created abstract moralities and philosophies and mores and laws to govern ourselves, to channel that very nature into different avenues of expression.

From the very beginning, when we hunkered around a fire to drive back the terrifying shadows, we have lived and we have driven back the unknown. We have turned the illumination of knowledge on the shadows of superstition and pushed them back. We have tamed animals and built nations and written glorious poetry and now that we have conquered our world and left an indelible mark of our presence here, we have turned to the impossibly far flecks of light in our skies, and we dare to challenge the stars as well.

I believe that we have a manifest destiny. That manifest destiny is just as fickle and as capricious as the very nature that I have faith in, but that manifest destiny is for us to reach beyond our world and eventually subjugate the stars. We are assertive and challenging, we are cold and calculating, we are viral and infectious, we dare to hope and we dare to dream.

We may all die, victims of our own human nature. We may destroy our world and make it unlivable. We may conquer the stars and discover like-minded species beyond the heavens. We may simply die, not with a bang but with a whimper, but that unknown future can only be realized through the exertion of human will, and that is what I place my faith in.

I love humanity in its most stupid. I love humanity at its most beautiful. I love humanity at its most petty. I love it at its most compassionate. everything we do, we do because we are driven by our very nature, and that is what I believe in. Humanity, fuck yeah.

Nestor Dissertation, Quick Post, Rant, Sociology

When I was around six or seven, the Challenger blew up. It was all over the news and everyone was shocked and appalled. I remember a feeling of frustration because a day didn’t go by that I didn’t see the footage of it blowing up in mid-flight. every single day the media played the footage of the astronauts’ last moments with a predatory, avarice-laden eye.

How many times did I see the collapsed bridge from the earthquake in 89? how many times did the slick media engine extoll the horrors with a practiced sweep of the camera lens?

I didn’t start feeling a real sense of disgust towards the media until Columbine. Live coverage of suffering, chaos, and mayhem. On and on and on, even Marilyn Manson castigated the media for their disgusting lack of tact in their coverage.

Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised. Does anyone think the Civil War was the least bit civil? If television had existed, you could be sure they would have been there to cover it, or maybe even participate in it, like their violent car chase of Princess Di. Disgusting vultures looking for corpses, exploiting, fucking, filming and serving it up for our hungry appetites in a gluttonous display of endless human stupidity.

When it comes down to who’s to blame for the high school murders in Littleton, Colorado, throw a rock and you’ll hit someone who’s guilty. We’re the people who sit back and tolerate children owning guns, and we’re the ones who tune in and watch the up-to-the-minute details of what they do with them. I think it’s terrible when anyone dies, especially if it is someone you know and love. But what is more offensive is that when these tragedies happen, most people don’t really care any more than they would about the season finale of Friends or The Real World. I was dumbfounded as I watched the media snake right in, not missing a teardrop, interviewing the parents of dead children, televising the funerals. Then came the witch hunt.

It’s really only gotten worse. Or, if it’s at the same level, there’s more suffering for the media to cannibalize and regurgitate. Katrina, Haiti, the shooting of that arizona lady, and now Japan. Why do we have to glamorize and publicize human suffering? why do we have to squeeze out every drop of human suffering on national (or international) television?

I think it’s more of a travesty that we capitalize on the pain of others for commercial gain. For ratings.

Nestor Dissertation, Quick Post, Rant, Sociology

So a friend of mine says to me, “hating a show because of the fans is pretty stupid, Nestor. If you don’t like the fans, don’t read/ participate in the threads.” I say he’s wrong.

Back in 2002, in one of my classes, there was a particularly odious little fellow that loved Rurouni Kenshin. Every single day he’d butt himself into every conversation, uninvited, and turn the conversation into his favorite subject: Rurouni Kenshin. To him, everything was Rurouni Kenshin and Rurouni Kenshin was everything. He’d talk about how many times he’d rewatch an episode each day. How he practiced the sword techniques. How he wished for his own large, obtrusive facial scar. It didn’t matter that he was uninvited, that nobody liked him, that he was quite rude in his butt-ins. Everything was Rurouni Kenshin, and Rurouni Kenshin was everything. It got to the point where I simply hated Rurouni Kenshin out of spite. Eventually he went away, and even though it’s been nearly a decade since I met that guy, I can’t countenance the thought of watching Rurouni Kenshin. I literally get physically ill at the thought of watching it.

This is a contributing factor to everything I watch, now. The scope of this is actually significantly larger, though. It’s not just a personal grudge against every Jared Riches that goes out and ruins every anime out there for everyone else. You see, here’s how it works: A good portion of anime is targeted marketing. It’s designed to appeal to a specific demographic. The idea is to encourage consumerism: buy the DVDs. Buy the Blu Rays. Buy the figures, the games, the apparel, the T-shirts, the pencil boards, the dakimakura, etc. Setting aside the consumer aspect and refocusing our attention on the demographic-targeting, you understand that specific genres of anime are targeted at age and gender demographics. A good and clear way to differentiate whether or not a particular show is right for you is to look at its destination- or more appropriately, its fanbase. Is a large part of the fanbase idiots? Are they inarticulate neckbearded Internet Warriors? Are they teens? Young adults? Children? Do they fit into the same social strata that you yourself fit into? Consider the possibilities carefully. You could be the only 25 year old man that watches a show that is targeted towards little girls, aged 9-12. You wouldn’t want that, now would you?

This of course brings to light all sorts of hilarious tangents. Let’s say you have an anime that is typically targeted to girls, aged 9-13, but the demographic just hasn’t historically created the market penetration you’re hoping for. You instead take that show and retarget it towards another demographic while keeping the elements functionally the same. In that case, you might be a 25 year old man watching a show that’s for girls, aged 9-13, but has been modified to include adult males between 18-25. Ain’t that some shit?

A second tangent would be the worst tangent. Let’s say you watch a show that’s relatively popular. You happen to be fairly intelligent, clean-shaven, sophisticated, and you can tie your own shoes. Every single other fan of this show is drooling, slack-jawed, runs around yelling BAKA KAWAII NEKO SUGOI DESU NE~. People are very quick to associate one thing with another. They think “This show = This fan.” Do you want to be lumped in with that?

I think it’s perfectly acceptable to avoid a show because of the fanbase.

Nestor Anime, Dissertation, Quick Post, Rant, Sociology

This anime season has largely been a fantastic disappointment. Back in the 90′s (or even in early 2000) I’d've probably watched most every series. Anime? Fuck yeah. I’ll watch it. I don’t give a fuck. As each season and year goes by, I filter things more and more and end up watching less and less. I tend to ask myself a bunch of questions about a series before I think about watching it.

Is it a genre I don’t follow? – I don’t particularly have a genre I don’t follow per se, except shows targeted at specific demographics that I don’t fill.
Where have I heard of a plot like this? – I started watching anime because the shit I saw on american TV was predictable. I want to see things I haven’t seen before. I want to explore new ideas and settings. I don’t want to say “Oh look, it’s this. Again.”
Is this based on a manga? light novel? visual novel? – Where it comes from is important to me. If there’s a manga, I may skim a few pages. I read pretty quickly, and if it’s something that catches my eye, I’ll pick it up. If it’s a light novel, well, there are sources for those too and while my japanese reading comprehension isn’t perfect, I can pick out the gist of things without exerting myself. If it’s a visual novel derivation, I won’t watch it, period. Too many experiences with bad adaptations.
Is [series name here] a derivative of another show? – This is important, and I think a lot of people disregard this unnecessarily. If you see a show with a spineless male lead, a tsundere childhood friend, and it takes place in high school, what’re the chances that the next show that has the exact same elements won’t do the exact same thing in this series? If you’ve seen it five times, or fifty times, what value is there in watching it a hundred and fifteenth time? sure the characters’ names may change, the art may change, but the same principles are there, the same tired, recycled dialogue is there- so what is the point? The answer is, there isn’t. It doesn’t matter if there are well-known voice actresses or it’s done by a unique studio. a story is just that: a story. If it happens to be the same story you’ve seen repeated ad nauseum, then it’s simply time to set it aside and go watch something else.

Questions like these filter things down pretty well. I usually end up watching 1-2 series per season, sometimes one more. There are of course a couple of notable exceptions to this season, the ones I’ve decided to follow are Level E and Kimi no Todoke 2. Before I talk about why I’m following them, I’ll take a brief moment to explain what I’m not.
First, the word on everyones’ eyes and lips is Madoka. There’s three main reasons I can point out why people follow it:
1. It’s SHAFTxShinbo. What will they think of next?
2. GRIMDARK DARKBAD PLOT
3. Yuki Kajiura is doing the music.
My response to those three points is this:
1. It’s always the story, and never who tells it. A good story will stand on its own, regardless of who tells it. People that watch SHAFTxShinbo often forget this and go on and on (at length) over how amazing they think SHAFTxShinbo is. They pore over thesauruses and congratulate themselves over how unique their superlatives sound in each others’ ears. Ultimately, it’s the hysteric and masturbatory fans that ultimately drive me away- it’s never about the show, it’s aaaaaaaall about SHAFTxShinbo.
2. It’s nothing more than a nihilistic Theatre of the Absurd. If you think about it, ALL of SHAFTxShinbo’s works fall into this category in some form or another. Again, if thought were given, there are dozens of magical girl shows that deal with despair, death, tragedy, etc going back ten or twenty years. If you disagree, then simply say that it’s a magical girl show with faustian overtones and leave it at that. If you look at it that way, It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, and thus not particularly worth my attention. How many magical girl series have existed since, say, the 80′s?
3. Yuki Kajiura, fuck yeah. Ain’t gonna lie, she makes some good music.
So yeah, if there’s a gripe, then it’d be that.

On to Kimi no Todoke 2: I don’t know why I picked up the first season. I’ll have a look at the MT archives and find out. It’s not my typical fare- why did I pick it up? I remember I was going to drop it at several points, but kept watching. Sawako is pretty sweet, and of course the long hair is definitely a selling point for me. Somewhere between the first season and the second season, however, I became … disenfranchised. I no longer saw it as a sweet and endearing show about a sweet and endearing girl. Instead I find myself more and more thinking of it as a overdramatized, saccharin-dosed show about a socially retarded aspergers girl. Every new episode I watch is a struggle to recapture… whatever it was I saw about the first season. I’m still watching, so either there’s still a heart left somewhere in me, or it’s all pointless discourse anyway.

On to Level E: By far, this is the show I’d recommend above others. I find myself at a lack for words when I try to describe, explain, and recommend it to you, though. I think it’s pretty intelligently written. There’s a good dose of humor and seriousness mixed in, and the first three episodes present things in a way that keep you engaged. I like the art style- in some ways it reminds me of the stuff I watched in the 90′s. On the other hand, the CG is pretty obvious, so you can’t take it entirely too serious. It’s about aliens. Of course, all the aliens live on japan, and that of course means hilarity ensues. Give it a shot.

Nestor Anime, Dissertation, Quick Post, Rant

One thing I’ve always been a fan of is World’s End Girlfriend, a pretty respectable band (though I use that loosely, as it’s just one dude according to wikipedia) that mixes rock, electronic and classical music into this sort of irreverent yet rocking style.

My favorite albums to date are “Hurtbreak Wonderland” and “The Lie Lay Land”, though I’ve got a special spot in my heart reserved for the track “All Imperfect Love Song” from the “Dreams End Come True” album.

Today, I’m going to talk to you about “Seven Idiots”, WEG’s latest album.

I’m not going to do a song-by-song analysis, but I’ll touch on some points: the pre-release tracks ‘Virgin Babylon’. Anne, and Green Greem are fucking amazing. If you can listen to them before actually listeing to the rest of the album, I recommend you so so. It’s got a sort of ethereal feeling to it in the beginning, like you’d see at the start of a fairy tale movie, but there’s some jarring inconsitencies towards the end that make it that much more awesome. It’s subtle and yet jarring. It paints an almost entirely different picture of how ‘Seven Idiots’ will play out. So, like I said, if you can, listen to those three tracks, and then listen to the rest of the CD.

The first track of the CD, “The Divine Comedy Reverse” starts out a lot different than what we expect a WEG album to start out, given his track record, but when it breaks out into the full classical just after the initial tease, you can’t ever think it’s done by anyone else. It keeps going with this electric energy through every succeeding track.

My personal favorite, the one I keep coming back to, over and over again, is ‘DECALOGUE minus 8′ it’s got this feeling like you’re in this jazz club that’s illuminated with blacklights and splashed with gaudy colors and not all the patrons are entirely human. It’s got this dark vitality that makes you want to move… like you’re being chased.

An offhand track mention goes to: ULYSSES GAZER, this aggressive track that plays like an opening to a series. It’s got these mellow pieces, aggressive strings, and this guitar and drum overlay that drives it in and carries it through. There’s this part a couple minutes in where it breaks off into this piano and you’re like “oh shit, okay, I get a break”, and then it’s right back in.

Overall, this is a very strong album and I think it’s deserving of all praise it can get.

Nestor Dissertation, Music, Quick Post

So the histrionic and reactionary media, in its infinite desire to expell whatever vomitus it can hork up, has landed in a very large, obtrusive, and international way on some reverend in Florida. See, he had this idea called “International Burn a Koran Day” where everyone’s supposed to (ostensibly enough) burn a koran.

This of course has caused a great deal of uproar, primarily from the narrow-minded, short-sighted individuals who see this for something that it is not. You see, it’s believed to be some sort of dramatic demonstration, mud in the face, an insult to muslims everywhere, etc. On a certain level they are right, because that’s exactly what it is, but in a larger picture, with a broader perspective, it’s not about that at all. They also think it’s “against the law” or instigates future acts of violence. In this they are wrong.

Firstly, it doesn’t matter at all if a koran is burned or not. A terrorist will do what he is compelled to do. Secondly, it’s not illegal. you can burn a koran, a bible, a Mein Kampf if you were so inclined and no one can bat an eye at you. It’s your right. You can burn whatever you want. It’s when you do it specifically to send a message, that’s when it changes from simple combustion to an imflammatory demonstration.

Historically speaking, book burning has been a form of information control. It’s about power and the propagation of propagandist messages. If you control the flow of information, you control everything else. Concurrently, it’s about oppression or the desire to oppress. From Wikipedia: “From China’s 3rd century BC Qin Dynasty to the present day, the burning of books has a long history as a tool wielded by authorities both secular and religious, in efforts to suppress dissenting or heretical views that are perceived as posing a threat to the prevailing order.” This is a twofold act: One, you’re condemning one form of information. Two, you’re aggressively enforcing your own information.

Where do I stand? Don’t burn books. Don’t attempt to control information. In an abstract sense, information is far more powerful and exists on a higher level than religious dogma, political ideologies or even geographic borders. It persists as an insubstantial yet tangible achievement of mankind to rise above our trappings and create something above our own limitations. Destroying books, censoring information and regulating ideas is more damaging than any terrorist act because you’re crippling the future enlightenment and intellectual development of humanity.

If you really wanted to do something substantial, book a flight and hunt down the people that want to destroy your way of life instead of grandstanding for media hype and celebrity status. Be a hero, not a retard.

You can do more good for your society, for your beliefs, and for your social situation by being active and supportive and creative, rather than being petulant, destructive, and ultimately damning.

Nestor Dissertation, Quick Post, Rant, Religion, Sociology

Our racist buddies over at minori has fired another shot, this time at No Name Losers, a fan translation group of dubious ethical quality. The bullet? Well, their site has an open email they sent to NNL last week. Asking them to to stop you know, translating their games. You read through a good portion of what they have to say, and you know what? they’re absolutely in the right. You know what? I’ll say that straight up: They might be racist fucks, but they’ve got a (legal) leg to stand on. Have a look:

You have translated into English without our permission and offered to the public our works [...] which is illegal with respect to both our Copyright act that was collectively ratified by other nations as well as our distribution rights. [...] The act of offering an independent functioning version of the software to countless people is a violation of the rights we have as producers, isn’t it?

In this, they’re absolutely 100% correct as far as legally and morally binding obligations. On the one hand it wouldn’t surprise me to see NNL stop production on their minori games, but at the same time, on the other side of the coin, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if NNL simply thumbed their nose at minori, called them a bunch of racist cunts, and kept going with what they were doing. I could care either way- I’m not losing anything.

A point I’d like to make is this line, which strikes me as hilarious:

???????????????

I read that as, “(we) risk our own lives to do so”, (the entirety of the statement being “We use enormous amounts of money and spend a long time to produce our games, and furthermore risk our own lives to do so.”) Isn’t that just the pinnacle of overdramatic posturing? Could they grandstand just a little more? Making a game is not a harrowing, life-threatening experience. You do not gush blood, internal organs do not rupture, your head will not explode. Well, I’m not sure of that, but I’ve done a little programming, a little scenario writing, etc and you know, I’m DOING JUST FINE. Maybe it’s with prolonged exposure?

This final bit is something that makes me a little upset.

If there are any amongst you who are truly fans of “minori”, and hope for us to carry on producing works in the future, please please stop illegal acts which our destroying our future.

Now they acknowledge foreign fans? Isn’t that a little backhanded? Well, wait. They don’t. You see, they still don’t sell to anyone overseas. Filthy gaijin dollars are filthy after all. You have to be Japanese and live in GRORIOUS NIPPON to buy and play their games. They’re not really losing money or livelihood because this (blatantly illegal) piracy is happening in a market they refuse to acknowledge. You can’t deny a market, and then complain you’re not making money off that market when you discover they’re using your product. I’m sorry, but that’s like refusing to believe that your car runs on gasoline and then bitching when the car no longer runs. Actually, a better analogy would be, “don’t lock the barn door after the horse has been stolen” You brought it on yourself. You had a damn good opportunity to expand into a decent market and you walled yourself up. You don’t have the right to complain that the world has passed you by.

If I were asked, “Nestor, What’s your official stance?” I’d say NNL is functionally in the wrong, but minori brought it on themselves, so they should acknowledge some responsibility too.

Nestor Adult Games, Dissertation, Japanese Games, Rant, Tech

It’s been a while since I played (and reviewed) a japanese game. There are several reasons for this hiatus. The one that sticks out most visibly is minori, a notably racist, isolationist, and terminally xenophobic game maker from Jolly ‘ole Japan. See, refer back to my posts on Equality Now. It can be easily concluded that minori are chafing under the yoke that their own government placed on them by blaming foreigners. Their response at first was to block foreign IP from their site. Another response was to post a thinly veiled message on their redirect page, essentially boiling down to “unless you are japanese living in japan, we don’t want you buying our games, participating in our activities, or even visiting our website.” Their solution? MOVE TO JAPAN. Literally, it says that right there on their website. “You want to play our games? Move to japan. We won’t have a problem with that.” Riiiight. I’m going to move overseas to play a game. I’ll get right on that.

I’ve heard some interesting defense in favor of minori. That they’re in the right to block foreign business. In this context, they are. Here in the US, you’ll frequently see the signs “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.” and generally speaking that’s perfectly okay to do. But this blocking of foreign business only started after Equality Now started their shit. This sophomoric reactionary stance is pretty fucking childish. Hello, it was your own fucking government that passed the goddamn regulations. The US didn’t do it. England didn’t do it. Zimbabwe didn’t fucking do it; It was your own goddamn politicians that couldn’t stand up for themselves, for the nation of Japan, for their rights, for anything. They’re the ones that said “You can’t do this.” End of line. Accept some goddamn personal fucking responsibility.

A second defense I’ve heard is that by blocking foreign IPs from visiting their site and purchasing/ using their games, they are defending their games against piracy. This is ALSO a crock of shit. It’s the Japanese that buy the games (IN JAPAN, LOLOLOL), it’s the Japanese that make digital copies, and upload them to P2P sites. Blocking foreign visitors from their website does nothing to “stem the tide against piracy” at all. Straw man defense: defeated.

So in any case, they’re taking out their impotent frustrations on the only people that can’t fight back: foreign fans. When you think about things like that, it’s not just insulting, it’s a brutal assault on your own humanity. You’re not worthy of playing their games by virtue of your birth- something you can no more control than the weather. Ultimately foreign fans have two (realistic) choices (I’m not even going to factor in minori’s outrageous idea of moving to another country just to play their games- let’s not be completely fucking stupid) when it comes to playing their games:

1. Give up on playing their games altogether. (no way!)
2. Get their games from another source, bypassing minori altogether. (Can do.)

In addition to that, my desire to play these games comes and goes in waves, and this was essentially ebb tide. Part of that is my completionist nature: I have to complete every game I play. I tried my hand at Clannad, and I ended up stopping after playing through the best route, simply because I have absolutely no desire for any of the other girls. Since I can’t start a new game because I haven’t finished Clannad (and won’t ever) I simply stopped playing altogether. Well, I got over that and soon I’ll have a good review of SWAN SONG up on the site. Maybe within the next couple of days. Look forward to it!

Nestor Adult Games, Dissertation, Games, Japanese Games, Rant, Sociology

I’ve been watching anime for almost twenty years. For a lot of people that are watching anime today, that’s more years than they’ve actually been alive. I can remember the first thing I saw that was anime: I was around twelve-thirteen years old and I went over to a friends’ house to join him in a night of video games and whatnot. When I got there, he and his older brother were watching Vampire Hunter D, and they’d just reached the point where this mutant (who thinks he’s got an edge against Count Lee) suddenly gets the tables turned; he gets picked up and smacked against various pillars and objects, and then boom! Head explody. Holy fucking shit, Stop the motherfucking presses, right? Well, for someone who was largely raised on WB and Disney and Hanna Barbara, it was a revelation: there was a whole new world of animation out there, just waiting for me to find it.

It’s been a long time since then. The world has moved on. My tastes in anime are bizarre and eclectic. A few years ago, I saw an advert for K-on. Because I don’t keep my thumb on the pulse of the anime community, because I don’t follow directors, studios, staff, seiyuus, I initially thought it was going to be a show about ENOZ from Haruhi. (In retrospect, i think it’d've been significantly better if it had.) The first season is arguably decent, if weak-watered. It’s a typical SoL that revolves around a “light music club”, sort of a school-sponsored garage band. I thought to myself, this is something I can relate to. Fourteen years ago I was teenager, all glazed eyes and gleaming reproductive organs, and I wanted to learn bass guitar. And I did. Our band lasted six months, we played a whopping three shows (only one of which we actually got paid for) and we wrote three songs and had parts and pieces of lyrics and riffs for another twelve. Although I only played bass for a school year and never looked back, being in a band leaves a mark on you. So forgive me if I wax a bit nostalgic while reviewing K-on.

Some of the trials and tribulations they went through I can relate to. Getting your band together, getting their equipment squared away, learning chords and riffs and trying to make money to pay for the gear, (which is terribly expensive) unplugging the amp while it’s still on, learning about your bandmates’ quirks and musical tastes, mysterious calls at 2am, lunatic drives all over the place to go to concerts, endless drinking and drugs and women of questionable moral value, and somewhere along the line you stop fucking off and music happens. When your fingers his the chords just right and you feel it all come together in a righteous glorious moment. You feel galvanized and you know that this is it. this is what it’s all about.

In a show like K-on there’s a certain leeway permitted; you can’t really have the expectation that a bunch of girls in japan are going to drive around at 2am looking for a party or discuss the merits of one guitarist over another while passing a j back and forth. Or all at the same time. No. Instead it’s a SoL moe-blob show about a bunch of cutesy girls in school (By the way, what the fuck man, This school can afford some high-tension gear. I about shit down both legs when I saw that set of zildjian drums.) who decide to set up a band. The animation goes from mediocre to terrible and back again, the plot is inconsistent but it tries to stay on track, and over the course of one school year they produce a whopping two(?) songs and the first season ends. While overall the entire first season was a piece of shit in terms of animation, direction, consistency and effort, there is an underlying thread that I could connect to, which was me in the garage band, relating to the girls in the club.

The second season is an utter failure in this regard. There’s nothing to relate to. Well, there was one episode where they hocked a guitar, which is something I remember our lead guitarist doing, but the rest of it is dumbfuck shit that no one gives a shriveled ratdick about. The season is about half over and they haven’t done anything worthwhile at all. When you think about how things fit together, you realize you’re simply marking time until something happens, hoping something happens and instead you get a bunch of bland dumbfuck shit about nothing. So, the second season is largely uninteresting and I suspect that when the season is over I will say to myself, “I can’t believe I watched that shit.”

Nestor Anime, Dissertation, Rant

So I read an interesting article in USA Today the other day. It started out by saying

“A Mississippi county school board announced Wednesday it would cancel its upcoming prom after a gay student petitioned to bring a same-sex date to the event.”

And at first I thought, “Well, that’s shitty.” But after i thought about it more and more, I realized there’s probably an element I neglected in the equation: She petitioned. See, there’s one thing I’ve always disliked and I’d like to take this opportunity to expound upon a certain aspect of my beliefs that is relevant to this situation.

I believe in a certain amount of what I would consider ‘universal rights’. (Setting aside the valid statement that it is governments, powers, and principalities that establish rights in the first place, I think it’s our obligation to establish a codified set of rights that every human has on the planet. It’s not surprising that there is a globally recognized system of rights that does exactly that, but this is outside the scope of my discussion.) I believe that everyone has the right to be treated equally. What this means is equal dispensation.For the most part this is something that is universally recognized and accepted. I don’t care if you’re black, brown, yellow, white or blue. You’re a human being and I’ll treat you exactly the same as any other human being. That’s it, that’s all there is to it.

What I hate though is that people capitalize on this sort of liberty that is handed to everyone. People that seek out special dispensation for the sake of attention. Not because they are being unfairly treated or mishandled or threatened, but because they have a false sense of entitlement- that is to say that they believe they are unique and precious and because they are unique and precious they deserve additional attention, dispensation, and consideration. This is a fundamental abuse of a system that we have struggled to maintain.

You watch the video and it’s all “me me me, I I I” it has absolutely nothing to do with rights being violated. The school district said that there was a distraction in the learning environment. Of course there would be a distraction if you’ve got a histrionic dyke that’s full of herself that has decided that she needs to take a stand in as public a way as possible. She started a petition, they made some changes in the hopes that she’d shut up and go away, and she decided to involve the press because that’s what needy attention-deprived people with self-esteem issues do when they don’t get their own way: they throw a public fit in the hopes that sooner or later someone will give them what they want.The result: The school canceled the prom. While I believe it was a bit heavy-handed, it’s also a fundamentally brilliant political maneuver. They are being quite fair to everyone.

In terms of personal experience, and keeping in mind that I haven’t been to a school dance in nearly two decades, I’m fairly certain that there actually were rules against same-sex couples going to prom. There were groups of girls and guys (both gay/ lesbian and straight) that went in couples and groups to the prom anyway, and while the rules forbade it, it happened, and I’m fairly certain that a blind eye was turned. The reason? Nobody made a big deal about it. There was no ‘petition’, there was no outcry, there was no big deal made. They simply went anyway. No great revolution, no media leakage, no reactionary fat girl sobbing hysterically on the evening news that she wasn’t getting her own way and it wasn’t fair.

Don’t get me wrong. There are legitimate violations of agreed-upon human rights all the time happening all over the world, every single day. Going to prom (or not going to prom) isn’t one of them.

Nestor Dissertation, Rant, Sociology