Things I Hate #6 - A Complete Marketing Trainwreck

I find myself exhausted and possibly sick as Christmas and New Year's day quickly approach, but I think I can still find the energy to beat-up on some of these ridiculous ads. Who knows, the effect might even be therapeutic. I'm looking forward to this set in particular because the absurdity and laziness seems to have been cranked up to 11 this time (barring the one repeat).

1. 3 Early Signs to Watch For as Mom and Dad Age
*Announcer voice* 3 early signs to watch for as Mom and Dad age into PUZZLE MASTERS, transcending mere 'professional puzzler' to compete with puzzle grand masters! Silliness aside, that title is incredibly vague if you stop and think about it. You know what it's alluding to but you are never actually given any context for the early signs of what you are watching for. As such, I'd like to posit that, based on the associated image, that you are supposed to watch for signs that "Mom and Dad" are becoming addicted to puzzles. First it's Word Search, then Crossword, then next thing you know it's 2000 piece jigsaw puzzles, and those wood and metal brain teasers that no one ever actually figures out. (Until now!)


2. Please Don't Retire At 62. Here's Why.
Dear Motley Fool, I appreciate your attempted use of punctuation on the internet, as it is all too often completely glossed over, but I'm afraid you might have misunderstood how the period works. You see, a period is supposed to end a thought, subject, or idea. As such the first period should be a comma and the second period should be a colon. Seriously, using a period isn't that hard. While I'm on the subject, (line) (oh yeah, nailed that pun) is it just me or is the title referring to something that is mostly common knowledge? You can retire at 62 but you won't receive full benefits. I believe the actual full-benefits retirement age is hovering somewhere around 67 years old at present. So if that's the article what's the point of the ad? Cheap click bait to hopefully draw them to other articles on Motley Fool? Is the retirement age thing not well-known? I definitely didn't think it a secret. Also what's with the picture? Is he regretting his poor life choice of retiring early? Or that fact that his face is several shades redder than the rest of his body?


3. 10 Celebs You Didn't Know Were Black
Oh my god! How hard is it to use "celebrities"!? I know it's 5 extra letters but it's clear you have a fairly lenient character limit because the ad directly beneath this one is about a third longer. And as for the article's subject matter how...? I mean, let me just put this out here, if you are black, physically, not metaphorically, that means that you are somewhere between dark and black on the spectrum. And if just one of your parents is black, again, I'm talking skin pigmentation, it might be a bit debatable whether or not your skin colour falls in the black spectrum. But if you are "black", as in physical skin characteristic, you can't not know, unless you're also blind. You can't just use a picture of a white girl (as was done above) and say, "Bet you didn't know she's black." She's not! I'm looking at her right now. Go ahead and tell me she has African American heritage, that her father is Jamaican or her mother is from the Grenadine Islands, but I'm not going to accept this "I can't believe I never knew they were black." nonsense the article is trying to purvey. Honestly.


4. 10 Trends Men Hate
Well if you're here you already know one thing I hate, but I'd wager that it's not on their list. I wonder if those really high jeans are on the list though. I don't hate them I just think they look really awkward. If I was a woman I definitely wouldn't wear those. While we're on the subject of things I hate though, I'd like to point out that I hate articles like this in particular. They are rarely representative of things that I, as a male, hate. In fact I'd say most of the things I hate are pretty representative of a lot of people, not just men. I hate things like nails on a chalk board, people changing lanes without bothering to use their goddamn turn signal, and losing progress in a game due to a glitch. So I get the feeling that a 10 things men hate list is going to be incredibly sexist or completely generic. I looked up a few similar lists only to prove myself 100% right on the three I randomly chose. What can I say, it's a gift.


5. There Are 7 Types of English Surnames - Which One Is Yours?
I'm gonna pass on this one since I just did a nearly identically titled one in Things I Hate #5.
I will say one thing though. "Which One Is Yours": None of them if you aren't English. My ancestry is mostly a mix of French and German so guess I'm out of luck.


6. Ditch Your Old CPAP. See What You've Been Missing.
Oh man, this one is a complete train wreck, I'm gonna' have some fun with this. Let's start with the easiest target, the photo, which features a terribly photo-shopped CPAP pasted over a picture of a pretty woman. Were they trying to take the sex-appeal approach to marketing CPAPs? That's like trying to sell a nebulizer by taking pictures of models using it. You can't make this shit sexy, why are you even trying?! Even if you could I'd argue that your talents are being senselessly squandered. (By the way, I looked it up just be sure but a CPAP is used in treatment of sleep apnea - it provides positive pressure to the respiratory system to help keep the airways open. The more you know!) Next off, I highly doubt that CPAP systems are the sort thing that people see and are like: "You know I think I want to go shopping for a new CPAP on an random web link." I don't even remember where I got this ad block but I guarantee it wasn't on a medical site. Correct me if I'm wrong but I highly doubt these are hot-ticket items. I just can't see people clamoring to have the latest and greatest CPAP like it's a new Apple iPhone. Last, I'd like to note that I love how the awkward-as-hell photoshop job makes the woman look like she has a Groucho Marx mustache and bushy eyebrows. Wait, could that have been their tactic? Were they trying to make something so bad it was good? Bum bum BUM~!

No. No they were not. They're just terrible at their job. 

Things I Hate #5 - An Educational Rant

 

Man I'm terrible about consistently updating. Not that that's really the point of this particular blog, but still, I like writing and it's sad to see that It's been like 3 weeks since I last wrote anything. This blog is supposed to be my "whatever, whenever" platform so that I don't feel overly pressured about writing, which works out great but it also means I don't feel particularly rushed to update. That's still better than feeling obligated to update and stressing myself out over it though.

 

And speaking of stress, I feel like relieving a little by beating up on one of the internet's easiest and sleaziest of targets: Hook-grab Cash-in Ads. Taboola, you're my favorite punching bag.

 

1. There Are 7 Types of English Last Names - Which One Is Yours?
Ah, Ancestry.com, we meet again. It seems the draw this time is to find out a little more about your last name, specifically what 'type' of last name. Honestly I'm already a little confused. How can you have a different type of last name? Like, is it the origin of the name? Or is it different formats? I'm getting a strong 'misuse of vocabulary' vibe from the title. Also the picture strongly implies that whatever is featured in the article stems back to the middle ages. There is just one problem with this. I know from my Dad's own genealogy research that names, even last names have a tendency to slowly warp and change over time. In my very own family tree I can see how the family name was modified bit by bit so that, by the time I reach the top of the family tree (as far as we have discovered) our last name was vastly different. So, aside from the obvious bait to get you interested in your genealogy so that you start thinking that "Hey, maybe I should get an Ancestry.com membership!", the article, by nature, will only be able to give you vague suggestions about where your last name actually came from. And that's assuming that you are correct in assuming your English heritage.


2. 88 Year Old Yoga Teacher Shares Her Secret to Never Ending Energy
Oho, Athletic Greens, wants to show us how to access unlimited energy! They will show us how to eat veggies, swallow supplements, and do Yoga! Yay! Okay, first off, this article is already making an unspoken promise. It's saying, "Look at this 88 year old Yoga teacher in this picture. You can look great at 88 and tap into boundless energy now!" (Note that there is no guarantee that the picture featured actually is the yoga teacher in question.) Of course this isn't a complete scam, there are things that can be done that are likely to increase your energy and most of them are pretty easy. Athletic Greens could even deliver on those fronts but I guarantee it would be for a price, a clearly visible and tempting price that would be right next to an article about a Yoga teacher who looks and feels great and wants to spread the message that "You can feel this way too". Here's my grain of salt though, if you're over the age of 20 life is going to be tiring, at least in some way. In a lot of ways the mere existence of this ad is a slap in the face to how difficult it actually is to have energy as a working adult, as many things are beyond your control. In order to have never-ending energy you need to combine as many of the following things as possible: eat well, drink plenty of water, get plenty of uninterrupted sleep, socialize with close friends and/or family on a semi-regular basis, exercise (very important for energy), don't drink too much caffeine, work a job you can enjoy or are at least proud of, make time for something creative or involving in your life (something relaxing; a hobby basically), and make sure that you have enough money to live comfortably with at least a modest savings** (extremely important for all but the most money-averse.) I'd find the article and spoil what the actual secret is but then I'd feel dirty for actually being drawn to the site. So let's just say the real secret is that there is no secret.


3. (July 2014) New "Rule" Has Drivers Furious & Shocked...
I hate these ads in particular. Also, if you noticed the date you can see how long I've been collecting these stupid ads now. Funny story, I first started saving pictures of the ads because I felt less inclined to click their dirty links when I did. I actually have a folder of about 50 or so ad blocks like the one above. Anyways, getting back to the picture, the particular brand of absurdity in these ads drives me nuts. Nothing has been happening that is making drivers "Furious and Shocked" except for freak accidents like a chunks of exploded whale meat landing on cars. Also, why is "rule" in quotes? Is it not actually a rule? Is it a law? A guideline? Another BS policy that an insurance company came up with? And the most absurd part is that the antique car in the picture is circled like it actually has something to do with the article. That particular car. Apparently the classic car ahead of it is unaffected by what Insurance.Comparisons.org wants to tell us about. I'm not interested though, and not just for the obvious reasons. This type of ad is, apparently, effective because I still see shit like this almost a year and a half later. Guess I was fine not knowing about this outrageous "rule".  (Unrelated, but did you know that in some areas that antique and classic cars with historical/antique plates can only be driven for specific reasons? It's why you don't see many on the road on a regular basis.)


4. 20 Disney Starlets Then & Now [PHOTOS!]
This is already a bad sign: Perez Hilton is the name of the site? Something reeks of minimal effort and the lowest common denominator. For one the premise is Disney starlets and photos. I'm not sure whether the article is intended to be an actual showcase of then and now or a chance to parade about pictures of disgraced child stars. Given that Disney has a reputation for corrupting childhood stars with early fame I'm inclined to say the latter. A narrow sliver of another image can be seen in the picture above, suggesting that had we followed the link we'd see a number of child stars (starlets, so...I'm gonna assume all girls) next to highly sexualized young women. Not really sure what to do with this one, so I'll try and summarize my thoughts as succinctly as possible. The link and the article are both perpetuating the continued exploitation of an actor that began as a child. Those child stars are (I'm assuming) all adults now though and it's their choice if they want to be overtly sexual or public about their lives. However comparing pictures of naïve young disneyfied teens next to their adult selves implies a sort of corruption even though it's a very natural progression. Although, admittedly it's a different thing if they got into drugs, were complete ego-centric assholes to everyone around themselves, and their life fell into a spiral of defeat, but regardless my first point still stands (that exploitation put them there).


5. 5 Ingredients 1 Delicious Meal
Seems straightforward enough. I only have to ask, why choose this site? There are tons of recipe sites all over the internet from allrecipes.com to Pinterest. (Not to mention an endless ocean of food blogs.) Also, I'm gonna take a wack at the recipe shown above cause why not. Someone let me know how it turns out.

Ingredients
1 - 3lbs. of any type of steak
1 can of corn
1 can diced tomatoes (3 if using those tiny cans)
1 can of kidney beans
1 large can of Hunt's tomato sauce

-Cook steak in pan over medium heat with a little oil.
-In separate pot begin to boil can of tomato sauce and one can's worth of water.
-Once pot is boiling reduce to simmer (Med - High).
-Add cans of corn, kidney beans and diced tomatoes. Cook 10 minutes.
-Add meat and simmer for 1 minute more.
-Serve in large bowls. I'm guessing it could serve 1-4 people depending on how hungry they are. Add whatever spices you think would be good. I suggest basil, oregano, or a southwest spice mix.


6. The Secret to the Best Vanilla Ice Cream
This was in the last one so you could always just read that one. Or you can read the condensed version here:

The Secret: Run to the store and pick up a pint of Ben & Jerry's or Coldstone's vanilla ice cream.

Things I Hate #4 - Pond Scum in the Form of Internet Ads

If you happened to catch my previous 'Things I Hate' then you know what's to follow. If not then you should know that I hate sponsored ads that try to disguise themselves as on-site content and this is me getting back at them in some small way. This isn't simply about deceptive marketing, however, this is also my chance to rant, rave, gripe, and cynicize (it's a word if I want it to be) about some of these ridiculous ads and, perhaps, society in general.

Railing ineffectually in 3....2....1...

1. Little Known Way to Pay Off Mortgage
This ad. If I keep doing the Things I Hate posts you'll see many different variations of this ad and I hate them in particular. Oh really!? A new way to pay of mortgage? You mean, besides time and money!? Oh PLEASE Daily Mortgage Monitor tell me how I might suddenly just pay off a loan that is usually measured in decades. Does it involve refinancing? How about consolidation? See, the thing I hate about the mortgage ads is that there isn't some miracle cure for debt, and that's exactly what Taboola is are hoping people assume when they word it as seen above. Like there is some secret that most people overlook. Unless you have your fingers deep into the world of finance you are probably already doing what's best for you. If you wanted more manageable payments you already refinanced, or decided that the interest over time wasn't worth the trade off. If you can make extra payments just on principle, then you probably already do. About the best I'd expect from clicking this ad is a refinance form or an advice column with such useful gems as Befriend Someone Wealthy or Cash in those Stocks.


2. Controversial "Skinny Pill" Takes Country By Storm
NO. JUST NO. There is no such thing as a skinny pill! This is complete BS! There are pills that supposedly help you lose weight if you are already exercising and watching your calories, such as Hydroxycut, but there is no pill that is just going to help you magically drop 30 pounds without some serious adverse affects. I know from past experience, the only thing that is really going to help you lose weight is diet and exercise. It's not what you want to hear. It's not what anyone wants to hear. You want to shell out the money and lose weight the easy way. There IS NO EASY way though. The skinny pill is a lie and Trending Lifestyles could choke down pills like a depressed Philosophy student and the only weight loss they'd experience would be from vomiting. Or maybe from a nutrition deficit from are eating that many pills. Don't even get me started on the taken-by-storm part. The only way stuff like this takes off is because mornings shows are paid the big bucks to discuss the BS 'next big breakthrough in weight loss pills' or some similar tripe.


3. Why You Should Color Your Gray at Home
eSalon, you make this too easy. First off, what grey hair? Two, why would I want to color my grey hair? I bet it will make me look distinguished. I could be the mysterious gentleman with the long grey hair, steeped in the pale rays of the moon...a rose gripped gently but firmly between my teeth and-- Er...whoops. Haha...ha..*ahem*. Right, number three, am I supposed to believe that the lady in the picture has more than a dozen grey hairs? She looks pretty young. Oh Snap! That's what they wanted you to think so you would say to yourself, maybe all I need to do is dye my hair...? I'm getting off topic though. This is about why you're supposed to dye it at home. Well you know what, screw that. Go to that salon, it's your night out after all. Treat yourself and dye your hair whatever color you want. Hell, dye your blond hair TO grey. You'll look distinguished.


4. Everything You Need to Know About Surface Pro 3
Everything I need to know about the what-now? *Googles* Oh, it's a tablet designed to be as capable as a laptop. That's pretty cool. Now, see what happened there? I looked up what I wanted to know and, oh my gosh what a coincidence, found out everything I wanted to know. Maybe therein lies the difference, however. I wanted to know. (This site offers a good point-by-point.) The Taboola ad needs you to need to know. The information is a necessity. You must know it, you must needs buy this Microsoft product right away- need to know more, must buy! Wait. Oh ho ho....what's this?

Mircosoft

So definitely not Microsoft. Well, well, well, Mircosoft. Very sneaky, what were you hoping to accomplish there? Trying to cash-in on Microsoft's good reputation? You know, I'd call you some of the worst advertising scum out there but, you know, I've gotten so used to spam and cheap ads using slightly off names that you're just a nuisance now. All those emails from Bliizzard.com telling me my account has been compromised served as good practice. So, yeah Mircosoft, you just sit there and think about what you've done. You should feel bad. In the mean time I'm going to label this as SCAM.


5. Angelina Jolie's Changing Looks
Er....it's called the aging process? It's a pretty normal thing. Yeah... Preeeeetty common.
So here we have another example of a cheap site trying to make a quick buck on a celebrity. I...I don't even have the energy for these. InStyle.com, I mean, what are you expecting? Anything? Some kind of standard of quality? Hold on, let me put my LCD screen to my forehead, I'm making a prediction....it's coming to me now: I see a...a shitty website...filled with advertisements...and...and a dozen pictures of dubious quality stolen from around the internet. Most are likely to be Angelina Jolie but several pictures are questionable. One is...just a picture of hair with some eyebrows at the bottom edge. Every picture has terrible and un-insightful commentary. I 100% made all that up but if anyone gets around to checking it let me know how many I got right. I'm gonna call 4/5 on this.


6. The Secret to the Best Vanilla Ice Cream
Food Network. Huh, what's Food Network doing advertising with Taboola? I wonder sometimes if the Taboola people sometimes just stick a random semi-reputable site in together with all the craptastic ones so that there is something recognizable there. Anyhow, you don't want to click that link (it's a picture, you can't anyways mwahahahaha) you want to hear me tell you my secret to the best vanilla ice cream? Drive any place that sells decent ice cream and pick up a pint of vanilla ice cream. I recommend Ben and Jerry's or Coldstone. Trust me on this. You'll make home made vanilla ice cream like, twice. It's a ton of work and it never turns out as good as the nicer stuff from the store. Certainly doesn't keep as well either.


Let me know about your own advertising nemesis or personal pet peeves in the comments. Or maybe just say hi. Or alternatively you can complain about me. No, it's cool. I understand. It's fine. I don't mind. Okay maybe a little. But you do what you have to do. I'm fine.

Things I Hate #3 - History Repeating

I hate sponsored ads. Once upon a time I raged about a series of Taboola ads, much like the ones below, on Facebook. Now, for some reason, I am about to do so for a 3rd time. So join me once as I complain and rant and go off on tangents.

 

1. Should Auctions be Banned? TaylorMade Drivers Have Sold for Less Than $12
I'm really not sure where to begin with this one, just of out sheer incredulity. Reading the title alone made me feel like I took one of those <$12 TaylorMade drivers upside the head. First off, the whole appeal of auctions is that you have the potential to get something for far below market price. Granted, you have to get pretty lucky to do so, but the possibility exists. That said, call me skeptical when I see an ad by Quibids mention an outrageously low bid on a driver the typically goes for (pardon me a sec while I check a reputable auction site) $75 to $399. Again, buying something far below cost, it could happen, but you need to get really lucky. This whole business about auctions being banned though? What is this nonsense? It's pure shock tactics aimed to get you to click. Auctions don't put people out of business. If someone is selling items below cost it's probably second hand anyways otherwise you'd be out of business in weeks. And last, these things tend to stabilize over time because if you can't afford to sell at a low price in the long run *gasp* the price goes up.


2. A Smart Way to Pay Off Mortgage
Make one additional payment a month so that you are paying on principal instead of just interest. Oh wait, I'm sorry. I just gave out sensible advice that wasn't related to a scam in any way. Damn! I'm really bad at this. On the plus side that picture of the dollar bill ring is pretty cool though, right?


3. 10 Rappers Who Lost Their Riches
The amount of attention given to celebrities never ceases to astound me, even if I've come to expect it. So it doesn't surprise me to see another up-and-coming site trying to make some cash on the celebrity ticket. I think the really disappointing thing with this particular sponsored ad is that there are enough rappers who lost their riches to justify creating a Top 10 list. I try not to think about the amount of money that some people blow on completely pointless things. Do you know how hard it is to blow large sums of money if you have even a modicum of sense and restraint? I calculated what I could buy with 1 million dollars once and it included a sizeable house, two new cars, the elimination of all our debts, a bachelor's degree cost equivalent of education (4 years of education basically) for both my wife and I, as well as 4 years without working. Even using overblown estimates and calculating college costs using our current outrageously high tuition rates I'd still have $160,000 left-over AFTER 4 YEARS OF COLLEGE AND NOT WORKING. So, no HipHopMyWay even if you were a reputable site, which I refuse to believe you are, that link is: Not. Worth. My. Time.


4. 11 Surprising Skills Your Great-Grandparents Had That You Don't
If you read my previous Things I Hate this entry might look a little familiar to you. So rather than repeat myself I'll just let you in on a little secret. Originally one of the things I was going to lambast this ad for was the picture. This is just a wild guess but it looks to me like the people in the photo are a couple from the Great Depression/dustbowl era and my immediate reaction was that those would be grandparents not great-grandparents. Of course then I realized that they would have been kids at best during the depression and assumed that the picture was right. Upon even closer inspection though, I've just realized that if the people in the picture were that old during the depression that would probably make them Great-great-grandparents. So hah! Skewered again ancestry.com!


5. Top 10 Cancer Causing Foods You Eat Everyday
Okay, honestly. What the fuck is up with that picture? Are those octopus legs on skewers? Food doesn't have to look like it crawled onto your plate and died a slow Shakespearian death for it to be cancer causing. Now, before I get to what actually does cause cancer, so you won't be tempted to look up the article posted by the flagitious fools that are whatever NaturalON is, I'd like to point out the obvious conflict of interest here. By the way, I love how easy it is to tell what type of marketing tactic or scam is going on simply by the name. There are those who are so good at marketing that its hard to tell where the content ends and the ad begins, and then there is NaturalON or Quibids or whatever other bare minimum effort name they could come up with. Anyways, NaturalON very clearly wants to sell you some sort of natural alternatives that aren't going to give you super-cancer. Here's the thing though there are tons of foods that increase your risk of cancer. I won't get into the specifics of how cancer works but basically any food with char on it would fit the bill of "cancer causing". So grilled meats can 'give' you cancer. Grilled veggies can give you cancer. Cooking on a traditional grill period can give you cancer. Red meat is believed to give you cancer and the same for alcohol. Teflon coated cooking pans can give you cancer. Exposure to car oil or gasoline can give you cancer. The sun can give you cancer. Diesel exhaust can give you cancer. Cleaning chemicals and fire retardants and a wide variety of other chemicals can give you cancer. Smoking can give you ultracancer. And smoke inhalation of any other sort (campfire, bad cooking, incense smoke, etc.) is certain to give you cancer. Basically there is a lot of stuff that can 'give' you cancer (although that terminology is flawed) but as long as you try and balance it by generally staying healthy you'll probably be fine. So let's just ignore these 10 Cancer Causing Foods and move on shall we?


6. 8 Celebs Who Have Severe Illnesses
I'm not gonna completely redo this one again since it happened to also be in Things I Hate #1 on Facebook. I'll give you the highlights though:

• Why was celebrities shortened to "Celebs"!? You have more than enough space as evidenced by nearly every other article name in the block!
• Famous black actor is featured in the picture for an article that probably isn't related to him in any way.
• Why do we care so much about these celebrities? Don't we have better things to be doing?
• Yes, lets pry into the personal lives of 'celebs' because they're definitely not people. Which is a good thing because that frees us from having to worry about HIPAA or disseminating information that the individual might not necessarily want going around.
• Also, is it just me or are those sunglasses totally shooped?

Thanks for sticking with me yet again. Post your favorite gripes about me or your most hated sponsored ads in the comments below!

The Thought Escapes Me

This is an unconventional entry in which I record thoughts that I would otherwise lose throughout the week. May a few less thoughts escape into the aether.

• Computer troubleshooting systems always want you to reseat the RAM and video card as one of the first steps (in many scenarios). Reseating the RAM has helped me a grand total of once, and if memory serves reseating a video card helped at most twice.

• In order for bureaucracy to work effectively there have to be systems in place that supersede the bureaucratic process. Essentially bureaucracy is only truly effective when you break the rules. That's essentially what executive positions do: break rules and skip steps. If find it mildly disturbing that this is a system for running countries.

• The fastest way to lose ideas is to be consciously aware that you are trying to come up with ideas.

• There is an issue some TV/animated series run into that I like to call: Soul Eater Syndrome. Soul Eater, an anime, was the first series I encountered with this issue so it has the dubious honor of having an affliction of the same name. Soul Eater Syndrome is when an otherwise good or great series decides to conclude by introducing, out-of-context, a giant robot. So far Soul Eater and Legend of Korra are the only literal examples, but there are some other shows that get figurative marks of shame.

• I hate you writing. I hate you so much. Why can't you be more like art? If I wanted to draw something I at least know exactly what I want to end up on paper even if my clumsy fingers and lack of technique won't allow me to do so. Or why not be like music? With music once you get the melody down you can just add everything else in one instrument at a time. No, instead I have to translate mental images into text and it never turns out as exciting. Instead I have a story, my figurative 'melody' that if put to paper would only fill a page. Writing is a long drawn-out tortuous process that rarely evokes the same level of emotional response as music, art, or animation. Why do I like writing so much again?

• My head tells me I should stay in my boring job and stay in this boring place because it will look good on paper if I stick it out for a few more months to a year. My head tells me that it's okay to put off the things I love for now because it is better to focus on providing a stable base for yourself than to chase impractical interests and long-shot careers. My heart tells me that I am killing my personality and stifling the passions that could drive me to succeed by staying in a place and a job I don't like. My heart tells me that I only have one life so I should focus my time on doing things I love even if it might make my life more chaotic. Someone should conduct a study on the results of following your head or your heart; I want to know which one is right more often.

•  When faced with the conundrum of whether or not to rinse out a pot (if you are pressed for time for instance), I've decided that the general rule-of-thumb should be to wash. On the other hand I think I am now one of the first people to eat beef ramen with undertones of cinnamon and apple oatmeal.

• I feel there is often a disconnect between what people appear to like the most and what they actually like the most. There are a lot of reasons for the disconnect but I still find it strange that some of the things we enjoy the most aren't always the most noticeable. For example, for a long time I avoided writing about series that I really enjoyed for fear of botching the piece and simply not doing my favorites justice.

• Most of my random thoughts don't seem to relate to creative stuff these days. When I was younger I tended to come up with skits and scenarios and conversations, unfortunately I think losing that is mostly just a consequence of growing up. You are shaped by your thoughts and your environment. Thought processes are self-reinforcing. Think creatively more often and you will be creative even when you aren't trying. If you are forced to think in a practical manner by your job every day then your thoughts will naturally tend toward the realistic and practical.

• People have been saying for years that robots will replace human workers, to which I've always said: "Good!" The types of jobs that will be replaced by robots are repetitive and uncreative. Until robots can perform nuanced and adaptive hand work, solve unusual (atypical) issues and problems, and self-repair it won't be an issue. Maybe replacing what the job market unceremoniously calls "unskilled workers" with robots could trigger a policy shift towards more education and create more challenging and rewarding jobs.

• A dark shadow fell across his face; "You can't have my burrito!"

• Writing is a lot like laying a mosaic tile floor with 1-inch tiles. The process is painstakingly slow, it's easy to lose track of where you are at, and you continually have to step back to make sure you've got the pattern right. Going back to make changes often means chiseling out a sizeable chunk of your work and you're always worried that the changes will be noticeable.

Things I Hate #2 - There is No Number 1 and Here's Why

Number one died in a plane crash. Very tragic.

No? Not taking that one? Okay, well, the truth is actually a lot less interesting. I've been meaning to do a "Things I Hate" series for quite a while now, not necessarily because I truly hate a lot of things. On the contrary, compared to a lot of people I'm sure I come in below average. There is just one thing in particular that really irks me. I hate sponsored ads. I hate them enough to start a "Things I Hate" series about them anyways, the very first of which I posted on Facebook. I'll post it here later. That's why this is #2. What? I told you the truth is a lot less interesting.

I always planned on doing more but Facebook never seemed like the right place and I suspect that a sizeable portion of my friend list doesn't quite 'get' my humour. So, enough stalling, let's get to the good stuff.

The worst offenders among sponsored ads are those that try and sneak their picture in at the bottom of the page pretending to be an on-site link. These links usually have unusual and misleading pictures and sickeningly effective taglines. Taboola is one of the more heinous offenders in this category so be prepared to see a lot of Taboola ads. Now, let's take a look at these ads and let's call them out on what they really are.

Review Order

1 2 3

4 5 6

1. We Reveal The Top 2 Skin Tighteners in 2014

Are skin tighteners really so popular that there needs to be a top # list of them? Actually, I'm all but certain that beauty products, including skin tighteners, are much more popular than I'm actually aware and/or willing to admit. Nonetheless, setting aside my biases toward beauty products, I'm sure the fact that Alleure Instant Wrinkle Reducer is sponsoring this 'top 2 tighteners' list won't in any way affect what ends up on their list. *cough* I guess I'll never know though because I'll never give them the satisfaction of willingly clicking their ad. Also, why top 2? That barely even qualifies as a list! Why not top 4 at the very least? Top 2 isn't even trying.

2. Book Lovers Are Obsessed with This Website

Okay, I'm gonna stop you right there. I am familiar with quite a few book lovers. I started a book blog (please help justify my existence by checking it out) which I'm pretty sure qualifies me, in the eyes of most people, as a book lover and I've never heard of "Bookbub". I also frequented a lot of book blog sites, far more than I ever intended and not once did I ever hear anything about Bookbub. You know what I did hear about? Amazon/Kindle, Barnes&Noble, Google Books, and a few other more niche sites that I can't quite remember.  You know, well known and trusted sites that don't try to pass themselves off as being hugely popular when they are not on the hopes that pretending they are will make them hugely popular. I'd condemn Bookbub on the sole fact that they believe that strategy could work, but this sinking feeling in my gut tells me that some sites probably actually pull this off. Also, here's a hint Bookbub: When someone is actually obsessed they aren't going to stop talking about it.

3. Celebrities We Lost Respect for in 2013

We still had some respect for celebrities? I kid, I kid. It's just that I don't follow celebrities, it's not my thing. There are only a handful of them that I actually care enough about to learn more about them, and certainly none that I feel inclined to 'follow' in any way. Whether that be creating a Twitter account (nevah!) and awaiting their 140 character maximum witticisms or just being more inclined to read articles about them. So not only is this article lost on me but I'm also sure that even if I was interested that the article on MadameNoir is of dubious quality. Although I'm somewhat interested to hear what sort of asinine reasons are given for why "we" lost respect or certain celebrities. Rest assured, I'm sure only 1 or 2 are actually valid reasons.

4. 11 Surprising Skills Your Great-Grandparents Had That You Don't

Surprising skills? How about just skills? Nah, 'surprising skills' creates a much bigger hook. You'll be surprised! Amazed! Holy sh!t. (I never really understood why you would censor expletives when you very clearly know what was censored, so in this case I might as well just write 'shit' because you already figured it out anyways.) Now, to be fair this article might actually be edifying in some way. It's by Ancestry.com. I think at this point pretty much everybody knows someone who tried out this site. By extension most of us should now be aware that Ancestry.com is only going to be marginally useful if you know next to nothing about your family history. Last time I had any experience with the site it was very clear that the site offered little that allowed you to confirm whether or not the "John Smith" you found was actually related in any way to the one in your tree. I digress though, I'm not here to rag on Ancestry.com, merely their ad. See this '11 surprising things' deal is really just a façade. It's probably a half-assed article with some small measure of interesting information (probably stuff you'd know if you ever stepped into a museum) designed not to edify but to get you thinking about your family tree so you could then head on over to the main section of Ancestry.com and pay them so they can provide you with various public documents. So what are these 11 surprising skills? My guess is stuff like farming, milking cows, hunting (although a LOT of people still know how to hunt so maybe not...), driving a manual, haggling (maybe). Okay, you know what, I'll look it up. Let's take the guesswork out altogether. Oh. Wow. It's....just as bullshit as I imagined. Well, hopefully now you can just take my word for future instances. Here are the 11 'surprising' skills: Courting, Hunting/Fishing/Foraging, Butchering, Bartering, Haggling, Darning/Mending, Corresponding by Mail, Making Lace, Lighting Fire Without Matches, and Writing with a Fountain Pen. You're welcome. Grade: C- article. Minimum effort put forth. See teacher after class.

5. "I'm not racist but...": Ohio Teacher on Paid Leave After Racist Facebook Post Went...

I'm sure the last word is 'Viral' but the suspense is still killing me! I'm not even sure what to say about this one. The hook is blatant, and HUGE. You could reel in the shark from Jaws with a hook this large. It's all very strategic, they want you to wonder "Not racist but WHAT?". Maybe he has a good point, after all he's a teacher! I bet it was something blown completely out of proportion! Okay, well, you go on and click that link while adjusting your tin foil hat, but I'm sure if you really wanted to know you could find better info from any number of other more reliable news sites. Anyhow I'll just be sitting back here noticing that Mommy Noire is suspiciously close to MadameNoire from the celebrities ad.

6. Make Your Quinoa Exciting with This Mediterranean Recipe

This ad is by Hunt's, by which I assume they mean the same guys who make Hunt's ketchup and tomato sauce. Hunt's is alright by me, they make a good simple product and this link probably is just a recipe. Still, that doesn't put it above my nitpicking. First of all, nothing is going to make your Quinoa exciting. Congratulations, you found one of the world's most boring foods. Next, just 'cause it's Mediterranean doesn't make it exotic, there's Mediterranean stuff everywhere these days. Now, maybe if it were subterranean Quinoa... Just saying.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this first (second) Things I Hate series. I plan on continuing with some more in the future so if you liked this one there will be more where that came from. Let me know in the comments which ad from today's selection you love to hate the most. Or, barring that, feel free to add your own nitpicks about the ads or my critiques.

Dark Zingers

So occasionally I like to toss around a bit of dark and/or cynical humour. It usually disappears from my head before I ever get a chance to write it down, especially since I try to keep my cynicism to a minimum while at work, so I wanted to share these small gems before I forget them completely.

From a Hangouts conversation yesterday (about paint colours):

Meanwhile, yesterday I also helped a co-worker move some furniture around the building. While moving backwards down the hallway with a bed we had the following conversation:

Coworker: Is there anything behind me?
Me: (Craning neck) Just a past full of choices you didn't make and regrets.
Coworker: Wait, what?
Me: No, all clear. No one's behind you.
Coworker: Oh, I thought I heard you say something else.
Me: Nope, just that.
Coworker: Huh.

I had another decent one but it pertains specifically to Final Fantasy XIV so I'll refrain for now. It's a very niche joke. Most of my actual jokes are lame. Or puns. Or lame puns. And some are just too subtle for people to pick up on right away, what can I say I have a dry sense of humour. Well, okay, if you insist, I'll tell one of my dryer FFXIV jokes (let me pretend damn you).

A member of my wife's Free Company was talking about how they were leveling a new character. The conversation went a something like this:

FC Mate: Yeah I've been leveling a ninja lately for fun
Me: Oh yeah?
Me: I don't believe you
FC Mate: Why?
Me: Because I never see any ninja's leveling
FC Mate: Well I don't get on my ninja very often but...

Obviously the joke went way over that person's head and I don't blame them, but I found it amusing. If you're having a hard time spotting the joke it's probably because you are thinking on it too hard. Also it's not laugh out loud funny, I just find it amusing. As I said, dry and subtle. Now go on, shoo. You probably have something better to be doing.

The Depth of my Shallows

I’ve always fancied myself a deep thinker and in some respects maybe I am, but it doesn’t really show in my writing. I like to imagine that I could draw from a concept, or a book, video game, movie, etc. and distill deep and nuanced themes from them; I wanted to wring out profound ideas from the symbols and characters. There are people who are very good at this, people who make a living at it, critics of all backgrounds, and bloggers such as Bobduh and froggykun. They seem to be able to find something hidden and beautiful lurking beneath the surface of just about any story and reveal something heretofore unknown or enlightening. Fascinated, I have tried the same and mostly just failed at it. I'm much better at writing in circles chasing my own thoughts than actually examining anything. My critical reviews are frustratingly shallow, even if I concede that I'm not well-practiced at reviewing.

There is something immensely alluring about having a literary mind, about being able to zero in on the nuances of a story and emphatically proclaim that you have pierced through obfuscation to reveal a hidden truth. I have not cultivated a literary mind, however, as much as I might like to pretend. And I do pretend; that’s pretty much what every post on No Book Unread is. Pretending is okay though. You have to start somewhere. Despite all the ideas I have though, I am significantly less eloquent when I commit those ideas to writing. If I’m being honest with myself being profound in that 'everything has a deeper meaning' way isn't really me. Hell, maybe it could be someday but right now it’s just something that I like, and like reading from others. When it comes to writing I’m not deep, no matter what type of media I’m analyzing. Observant maybe, but not deep. There is only rarely a deeper meaning behind my words and ideas. My strengths rely on drawing connections, often to things that usually have no business being mentioned in the same sentence.

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I first decided I wanted to try my hand at critical or profound pieces. I’ve always hated analyzing literature and, albeit to a lesser extent, other media such as movies, animation, and video games. English 102 taught me that analyzing meant tearing a story into its individual component parts, dividing a story into pieces of symbolism, ‘significant actions’, and isolated lines of ‘meaningful’ dialogue. The thought always infuriated me. That’s how my English teachers always seemed to teach literary analysis, but in the recesses of my mind I’d be screaming, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts!” The hatred has faded over the years since I realized that analyzing doesn’t necessarily mean completely dissecting a story, but some residual hatred still lingers. Perhaps that is what prompted me to try my hand at being analytical and to attempt to read between the lines? I wanted to prove that you did not have to lay out the exhumed remains of a story in order to claim that you had divined its secrets. So much for that though, I haven’t proven anything in that respect. Maybe my teachers were right. Maybe you do have to know all the inner workings to truly understand something, or to analyze as it were. But I still think it's all too easy to lose sight of the whole when you are fixated on the components.  

I think part of the problem is that, for a while now, I’ve been trying to write in a way that seems to conflict with me on some level. Maybe I've lost my identity as a writer; my perception of myself as a writer has always been tenuous. I frequently feel that my words are not my own, that there is some disparity between what I want to say and what actually ends up on the page. It's as if the thoughts are my own but then written by a different person. What irks me the most is that I'm unsure if the problem stems from trying to emulate someone else's writing or from my (nearing a) decade-old expectations of style not matching with my current style, or something altogether different. This whole idea must seem kind of strange, but imagine that you wake up one day and your speech patterns have all changed. You say things you never used to, you speak with a different tone, and, why not, you have an accent. You'd feel out-of-sorts right?  Your idea of yourself would conflict with how your speech manifests. Language is one of our primary ways of interacting with the world, and one of the most prevalent. Your particular style of communication is part of who you are, and that includes written language. Now, it might not seem it but this is quite detrimental to depth of writing, and just insight in general. We all take for granted that much of communication is unconscious. We choose our words, our actions, and our expressions, but we don't have to think about the actual process of speaking or writing once we are fluent. We don't worry about how to form a sentence, we worry about how we present or arrange a sentence. Our speech patterns are a natural manifestation of our experiences and quirks and are unconscious. If you suddenly woke up speaking British English though it would be extremely distracting. (Assuming you are an American English speaker of course, if not just flip it.) Very likely you would fixate on what you're saying and find it hard to actually focus on your conversation topic. In the same vein I find my own writing very distracting at times. The goal for me then is to achieve some level of comfort, hopefully meeting halfway and partially adapting my writing to be a little more "me" while also becoming more accustomed to the things I can't easily change.
 
While I like writing as a whole it's been a while since I've really had fun with it. I know that writing doesn't always have to be fun, practice is rarely fun in the traditional sense, but even my recreational writing has been listless for a while now. It's hard to really invest yourself in chasing phantom themes and elusive symbolism when you aren't having fun doing it. Over the past several months I've been spending my time trying to be critical and analytical, searching for depths that may not even exist in many works. When I take in a story I don’t have a cloud of vague profound ideas swirling about my head just demanding to be crystallized into something more coherent. I lack the driving force of a good idea that needs to be expressed. None of my ideas demand to be written in the same un-ignorable nature that used to overtake me, I have to wrack my brains for a few good ideas and stitch together them together on paper. I don’t read a book or watch an anime (unless it’s Evangelion or FLCL) and wonder to myself, “What am I not getting here?” If a work has depth it needs to put effort into making me wonder what those depths are (Shutter Island for instance), otherwise chances are I won’t care. It's not in me to go looking for depth in every mundane aspect of a story, so I guess Hills Like White Elephants can just kiss my ass.

I am shallow, or at least I can be. I am often melancholy and jaded, and sometimes bitter, and frequently meandering because that’s how my thoughts are. Yet I have a tendency to overlook those traits, or at least downplay them. I still fall into the bad habit of assuming that my dominant traits are the same as they were a half-dozen years ago. My writing has changed though, and so have I. By nature I'm want to take the wide-view these days rather than fixate on the details. I am a little saddened by some of the changes. I'm more tired now and, as I said before, more jaded. In a nutshell I'm afflicted by a sense of cynicism and disillusionment in contrast to my younger idealist, passion-driven self. My shallowness is largely related to that contrast, for in the real world I have found no deeper meanings. There are hidden ideas, profound ideas, but they are drawn out through careful observation or deep empathy, and are hidden by ignorance more than anything else. My shallowness is a reflection of that. I do not go looking for deeper meanings, because the meanings are either there or they are not, whether personal or universal. Profundity or depth of story is needlessly associated with obfuscation and complexity, and I don't believe that solely true. Sometimes the most profound things are some of the most simple, but it's very easy to overlook the simple things. Maybe that's why I don't consider myself deep though. Whenever I look closer for something deep or complex all I find is something simple.

Artists, Authors, and an Arguably Ardent Article

I was thinking (never a good sign) and realized that I have strange preferences when it comes to writing mentors. It would be natural, for instance, to follow the masters of your craft, yes? As such you'd think that maybe I've brushed up on Shakespeare or skipped a few hundred years and pored over Mark Twain or Jack London. Barring that you'd assume that I have a more intimate knowledge of some more contemporary authors and writers. Yet for all the authors to choose from I know only a handful. Instead I find that I've learned the most from artists. 

Modern artists are increasingly public, especially about their creation process. It's very easy to trace an interesting picture back to the creator and, in the the process, discover a blog or website that details their process. Which is precisely what I've done time and again. The creative process for visual arts is surprisingly applicable to writing. Many artists detail the step-by-step production of their art and discuss the various styles and preferences that they have developed over time. You can follow their process and see, in each of their works, how that process affects their art. Just as important, perhaps more important, you can also look back at their earliest works and see an immediate difference. For me at least this is proof, easily identifiable proof, that practice and method results in improvements. Although I know that writing can grow and progress in the same manner it is reassuring to see such distinct results. As such I steal from from artists all the time. I steal the way they plan and filch their rules for creating artwork. I nick their ideas and inspirations and translate them into words. Purely out of respect I assure you, and envy.

Why envy? Reading is overwhelmingly a solitary pursuit and, moreover, one that takes much more time to process. Drawings, on the other hand, can be taken in at a glance; they are incredibly easy to engage with. Though more time might be required to plumb the depths of a particular work there is an immediate resonance and, frequently, an almost-as-immediate mental impact. Drawings and photos are also much easier to share for the same reasons, it's why pictures dominate so much of the internet now. Happening upon a block of text, however, does not illicit the same sort of engagement. In fact a long post or article can often have the opposite effect because your first thought is, "that's a lot of text", which might as well translate to "that's a lot of time". You have to make a snap decision on whether or not you want to invest that time. That's why so much effort is put into crafting ludicrous article titles and opening lines with hooks so large you could land an eldritch horror. That's often the only thing standing between someone at least reading a paragraph and an immediate snub. Admittedly even I've been guilty of it.

Between my natural love of graphic art and the engagement issues I mentioned I've had a disproportionate amount of exposure to modern and up-and-coming artists as opposed to authors. I can name a dozen modern practicing artists off the top of my head (or at least their user-names) and while I'm not overly familiar with classic artists themselves I've viewed more of their works. Once again visual mediums have an advantage when it comes to engagement, they age much better. Aside from easy engagement visual mediums are fairly timeless. While styles may come and go their subject matter is largely immune to irrelevance unlike the constantly shifting landscape of language. No one looks at one of Georgia O'Keefe's flowers and says "What is it? Oh well it must be something archaic that isn't around anymore." Unless it's an abstract painting you can find an abundance of recognizable elements. Not so for older texts which often remain obscured behind aged etymology and abandoned lexicon. Timelessness is pretty much guaranteed for artists unless you're a political cartoonist, in which case you were quickly becoming irrelevant the moment your pen touched paper (but you should have known that going in).  Arguably newer art based around popular media will become irrelevant at an accelerated rate too, but even their subjects; people, places, things will still remain recognizable long after their significance has faded, but I digress.

The number one reason why I consider so many artists as mentors is because I live vicariously through their sense of progress. I thrive on it. It’s so easy to track progress with visual arts, especially for an outside observer. Identifying areas that need improvement is pretty straightforward, with the exception of some potential snags in the no man’s land between amateur and professional. Even a lay-person can point out that a picture looks plain, or the colors are odd, or that the legs look too big, the hands too small, the perspective off, or that the shadows are on the wrong side. Much like drawing it CAN be very easy to identify when writing is good or bad, but the improvements required to make writing better aren't usually as immediately apparent. When writing is just plain bad it’s easy to make suggestions. Writing has a huge middle-ground though where it’s hard to place just what needs to be improved. Unless the person reading is a fellow writer then making suggestions can be difficult at best. The easiest improvements to identify are usually content issues such as character actions or pacing. As you’ve maybe surmised I find the process of improving my writing ambiguous even in the best of times. That’s why I find it so vital to have some sort of physical corollary in which to project my word-smithing frustrations. Looking back on my writing from the past year I can scarcely tell if I’ve improved at all. Comparing some of my earliest writings there is a noticeable difference but I was also incredibly rusty at that point too. Beyond the span of my first two months it’s hard for me to say if my writing has really matured at all in the past year. I am admittedly my harshest critic but even my best attempts at objectivity leave me staring forlornly past my words, unsure of how to judge any potential progress. Unfortunately writing is stubbornly resistant to the elegant simplicity of side-by-side comparisons that visual art lends itself so well to.

Despite my fascination with graphic artists (obsession?) there are still some writers that I look up to. There are certain things that artists can’t teach, or at least can’t teach as efficiently. Chief among those things being how to take the long view and construct a world and a character one piece at a time. Artists get to put 1,000 unspoken words into every picture. Writers shrug and with each 1000 words paint one tantalizing piece at a time of an ever larger mural. As such certain authors in particular have taught me how to take the long view in a story. Their stories weave complex moving webs of plot and they develop characters like ripening fruit on a branch. Whilst others have taught me a lot about tone, how to give your writing some edge, and how effective or even comedic a good observation can be. Due to the time involved in reading I’m not nearly as well read as I wish I was. Eventually, though, maybe I’ll be able to list authors off the top of my head like I do artists. And maybe eventually I can say that my writing has grown and is, unarguably better. Until then I will continue to feed off the underbelly of the arts community; the remora of the literary world, feeding upon the scraps of artists, reviewers, bloggers, and assorted authors. 

Ruin Your Interests

I don't always have writer's block. Sometimes I experience writer's reluctance. It's not that I can't think of anything to write, or even that I'm reluctant to write, rather, it's that I don't want to ruin the ideas I do have. I have to imagine that, for those who don't write regularly, this may be a strange concept. 

Considering I sometimes struggle just to commit words to a page you'd think that I'd take the first idea that came to mind, so long as I could grab hold and run with it. Fresh ideas are also the most fulfilling to write, and that is where their magic lies. An unused idea can sometimes feel as though it has an almost indefinite shelf life so long as you keep it in your head. Of course, why would you keep a great idea in your head when you could splay it on a page? Well, for me at least, it's because I want to do the idea justice. 

If you've ever seen an excellent idea ruined by poor execution then you can probably relate. When writing about my interests, about the things I really care about, I naturally want to make them the best that I can. In writing about something for the first time there is a lot of zeal that sometimes doesn't return in the same way when revisiting a subject. And especially in the case of writing for an audience, such as with a blog where your first draft is frequently also your final draft, there aren't a lot of people who want to read six different reworks while you iron out the kinks. Of course I could also go ahead and do just that, since my primary focus is on practice and not audience. However, I like to consider this blog and No Book Unread to be simultaneous studies on both writing and marketing. (Although to be honest I really hate the term marketing and many of the words related to it for reasons I can explain succinctly.)

There are other issues with using an idea for the first time as well. The first time you write about a particular idea is when you'll be the most passionate, and often the most creative, at least for many revisions. So it can be tempting to frequently re-shelf an idea until you feel you are more proficient. Thinking on that now, that probably deprives me of a lot of ideal practice material. On the other hand, it also brings me to my next point. Writing about your favorite subjects can be very draining, especially because you want to properly convey your love of the subject. This typically results in two things; one, that you rarely feel satisfied with what you've written, and two, that you get bored with the subject and don't touch it for a while. That is, you run the risk of ruining your interests, even if only temporarily.

I should make some more attempts at working with my favorite subjects regardless, as the old adage 'How you practice is how you perform.' has proven true more than once. Writing isn't the only case in which I've kept my favorites 'in reserve', and in previous cases the things I didn't care for as much ended up being becoming what I was better with in the long run. Which just goes to show that if I really want to do my favorite subjects justice I need to practice them, which may mean botching them terribly. So, I guess that will be my first new bit of advice to myself, as well as the first new entry on my writing guidelines list. 

Note to self: Ruin your interests.

From Writing Block to a Block of Writing

Supposedly, the best remedy for writer's block is to just write anyways. According to the advice it doesn't matter what you write, or even that it is any good, the act of writing will clear away the block. The advice is sound, but it seems to me that it is more of a workaround than an actual remedy. Generally speaking, if you have writer's block you have one of two problems: a) You are bereft of ideas, or b) You have an overabundance of ideas. The idea behind writing anyways is that either you'll figure out what to write about or that you'll get some writing done regardless. So, even if you don't know what to write you might still end up with a nice block of text. The problem is that I feel the advice doesn't actual help with the actual issue.

Writing even though you are experiencing writer's block will still give you the benefit of having written something. The question is, does that writing benefit you? If all you're going for is practice, then sure, you gain a little benefit. If you were hoping for some quality content, however, I'd argue that you are pretty much out of luck. The best you might hope for are some good ideas or a few particularly good lines that you can transplant into something worthwhile. 

The thing about writing through a writer's block is that the problem isn't actually solved right away. You're essentially just breaking the damn so that you aren't still stuck the next time you sit down. If you'll excuse some bathroom imagery, it's like a stuck toilet. You can grab your plunger and jam it down in there. That will clear the block but you haven't actually achieved what you set out to do until you flush it all down. It's the same for writer's block. And on that subject, writing through writer's block is about as enjoyable as plunging a clogged toilet too. 

At its best working through a block can help you figure out what you actually want to write, in much the same way that doing anything when you're bored can help you realize what you actually wanted to do. At its worst though working through it can feel as though you've wasted an afternoon. Essentially, writer's block sucks. A writer writes though, and the advice to write something, anything, is still the most effective solution I've come across yet. If nothing else you are doing what a writer is supposed to be doing, even if the result looks like you murdered a dictionary. 

Raise Your Hand for For Robot Arms

Have you ever wanted to trade your organs in for 'upgrades'? Hey, don't give me that look, it's a valid question. Especially since the general consensus is that we are living in the future now it's something you might want to start considering. To clarify though, just so no one thinks I have some good offers on black-market kidneys, what if you could upgrade parts of yourself?

Perhaps it's because I've been playing Xenosaga lately, but the question has been on my mind. If you have even a passing interest in science fiction perhaps the question of body modification has crossed your mind as well. Supposedly, when the future arrives, we are likely to be split down the middle with indecision and heated debate over which is better: biological engineering or bio-mechanization. In other words, raise your hand if you want to be genetically enhanced super-human. Good, now for those of you who didn't raise your hands you'll be getting robot arms and possibly part of a super computer in your brain to help you dwell about your life as you lie awake at night. Last, those of you who opted for neither are part of the 'purist' group, you'll get to enjoy being overshadowed by all your peers who opted for either genetic engineer or robot parts. 

I kid. Sort of. There are some really smart people though who honestly believe that this is going to happen at some point in the future. I even watched a documentary called The Singularity which interviewed a scientist who believed man and machine would eventually merge. Perhaps he's not too far off the mark though, even if he was a bit over-optimistic on the timeline. Even now we are already using technology to prolong our lives, pump our blood, filter our blood, even to help us reproduce. Who's to argue that we won't eventually become the equivalent of elves, and beyond that, reach a point where it's only natural to seek body upgrades for quality-of-life.

To be honest I don't feel that I can really argue the point about whether or not the whole body upgrade phase will ever happen. I don't think it's a matter of if but when. Of course, I also believe that it's not going to be a matter of which but rather which first. Seriously, why choose sides in these things? I never understood the concept that machine integration and biological engineering were mutually exclusive in the long run. If you look at history, even relatively abrupt changes have a natural progression to them and this supposed Singularity, the merging of man and machine, doesn't have to mean that humanity abandons being human for functionality of being a machine. 

Ignoring the whole concept of Artificial Intelligence, for the time being, why can't you have some sweet robot arms but a bio-engineered power supply for said robot arms? Why can't you have computer aided logic as part of your brain and biologically enhanced reflexes? The future, to me, doesn't so much seem to be choosing a side but instead determining where you would fall on a scale. Certainly I think some people would be much happier just outright replacing some of their more finicky organs with some form of machinery  if they felt it would help them live more comfortably day to day, while others would prefer to 'keep their parts' as it were and just attempt to improve or remedy existing functions. Somewhere in-between there is also the whole nano-machines argument. While, strictly speaking, nano-machines are technically a unification of man and machine it seems to fall somewhere more in the middle, as the general concept behind nano-machines is that they are supposed to enhance instead of replace. 

When it comes down to it I'm pretty comfortable with either option these days. Robotic eyes? Sure, as long as I don't have to pop them out and clean them every other day. I'm lazy, and this is supposed to be the future damnit. When it comes down to it I feel like it's hard to lose your humanity just by swapping out a few parts. We humans are remarkably adaptable and pretty much anything we change will naturally become a part of us because that's just how our brain works. Now, when the day comes when we can trade our brains for digital ones, maybe then I'd think twice. Our brains are a massive part of what makes us who we are, so I'd have a hard time accepting the argument that transferring a copy of your brain to a computerized version is 'the same as you were'. Then again, I'd be surprised if we are able to create a computerized replica of the human brain in the next four-hundred years. 

Of course, there is one part that I especially dread with the coming age of human enhancement more than anything else. The emails. 'DON'T JUST ENLARGE YOUR TROUSER SNAKE, MAKE IT PREHENSILE!!!' 
You know it will happen, and it kinda scares me.

Don't Shoot the Mechanic

I was sitting and enjoying the weather, a perfect 76 degrees with a light breeze. I was lost in the middle area of another book, Dragonwing this time, almost oblivious to the world around me. 
"Your car is ready." 

I looked up from my book. I was in the waiting area at my local mechanic; the windows and door were open to take advantage of the nice weather. A warm breeze wafted through, I suddenly wished that I was still lost in my book. I walked up to the window 

"That will be $246.52."

I must have made a face because the lady behind the counter looked apologetic and said something to the effect of "Yeah, I know it adds up quick."

I experienced a mild sense of deja vu. Or maybe I was just overwhelmed by a sudden resurgence of memories. In either case this scene seemed to have reoccurred quite frequently over the last few months. This time it was tires and an oil change. Last time it was a new manifold for the exhaust system. The time before that one of the rear calipers decided it had had enough of my shit and ate through the break pads before moving on to the rotor, which made a lovely grinding noise, like a slab of granite was stuck in the wheel-well, for about a week before I could afford to get it fixed. I blamed the other rear caliper for being a bad influence, as it had screwed up only a few months previous.

To be fair our car, a Nissan Altima, serves us (my wife and I) well but it does seem to be about time for a few parts to be wearing out. The car is approaching 200,000 miles and runs like the day we bought it, but some of the other work-horse parts are starting to be phased out at this point.  This year it just so happens that there is a bit of a queue forming. If the trend continues we should have 1/3 of a new car by 2016. 

Back in the office of my mechanic I stared at the red number at the bottom of the invoice and punched in my debit pin a moment later, my lips a grim line. I still need the bearings in one of the wheels looked at, though whoever did the paperwork last time forgot to write down which one. I've also got a half dozen other big expenses due before the snow hits the ground a few months from now. I try not to think to hard about it, because somehow we always find a way to make things work and I haven't had to sell any organs yet, mine or otherwise. So there's that. 

The bill was stamped paid and I folded it neatly in three parts. I'll be tossing it in the glove box in a moment, as part of a service record history in case we ever sell the car (even though we probably never will). Meanwhile I fantasized about being able to work on the Altima myself, and occasionally taking a break by laying on the pile of money I was saving by doing my own work. 

I certainly feel I have the aptitude to do my own work. I have the trouble-shooting skills from working on computers for years, and I'm apparently competent enough that I managed to get a certification in computer repair, not that I've put it to use yet. So given enough time I'm sure I could learn my way around an engine. I can see myself leaning over an engine, covered in grease and dripping sweat into the organized jumble of parts beneath the hood. I've got my hand snaked down into the engine as I try and prize loose a corroded bolt, my muscles straining. Essentially, the complete opposite of computer repair; since your goal is to vehemently avoid dripping sweat on anything, any sign of grease is a cause for concern if not outright panic, and using much more than a golf putt's worth of pressure is a sign that you're about break something (unless you're installing a heatsink in which case the corroded bolt scenario still applies). 

However, I digress. That won't be happening any time soon, and I highly doubt at all. Learning to work on cars now would mean acquiring tools, dozens of hours of learning (in my experience about half that time is spent staring at something half taken apart with a mixture of despair and grim determination), and I'd still end up paying a good chunk of change for the actual parts. Better that I just stick to what I know, computers, and let the mechanics do their thing. Maybe someday I'll pick up enough mechanic's skills and tools to keep the basics of my car in order. For now though I'll have the satisfaction of keeping my computer running and the minor admiration that comes from the non-tech-savvy, who seem to regard anything relating to computers in the same way most people regard calculus problems, or snakes, or a calculus assignment tied to a snake. 

I latched the glovebox shut and started up the car. It was still 76 degrees out, a perfect day by most people's standards. I cranked my music and rolled down the windows as I pulled out of the lot. The car felt good. It's probably just in my head but the car always feels a little better when I leave. The new tires I had just bought felt like they stuck to the road better. The difference is usually subtle and I sometimes wonder if it's worth shelling out hundreds of dollars for. I need this thing to keep running though, the Altima isn't even paid off yet, though it's nearing that point. Still, the drive home is nice. I guess it's worth it.

At least that's what I'd like to say. There's got to be some point of equilibrium in which the concern over the money spent is canceled out by the peace of mind brought about by vehicle reliability. Right now the expense versus reliability scale is still skewed enough that it caused me to forget what page I was on. Clearly an unacceptable level.

Dungeons and Dragons Part 2 - Shepherds of Wandering Attentions

Last time (A Tangled Web of Rules):

Patrick seemed to appear out of nowhere one day. He befriended Brandon seemingly overnight and soon he just seemed to be hanging out with us all the time. He also happened to bring with him years of D&D 3rd edition experience. It seemed impossible that anyone could comprehend and effectively wield the living mass of rules that was 3rd edition, but somehow he managed it. Little did I known that I would be drawn again into D&D's siren call, or whatever sound a small tome's worth of technical fantasy jargon sounds like. (In my previous experience it typically sounded like a book slamming shut followed by a defeated sigh.) With Patrick offering to take the helm of a D&D campaign, however, my fate was sealed. The legwork was going to be taken care of and after so many years I couldn't help but want to give it another shot...

Dungeons & Dragons can be addicting in a lot of ways, or at least the idea of it can be. 
One of the more romantic aspects of the game is that it provides a proactive outlet for your imagination. For many people who spend a large portion of their day doing things they don't particularly care for (school, work, or otherwise) it can be incredibly refreshing to be able to use your head in a fulfilling way. D&D requires you to sit down with a number of other people and collectively use your imaginations to interact with characters, slay monsters, search for treasure, perform extraordinary feats, or, as is sometimes dictated by the dice, fail spectacularly. The addicting part is that you are being rewarded for being creative, usually just with imaginary riches or fame, but also with good times spent with friends. To those who haven't played, it might seem strange, but you can forge bonds over D&D that are almost as strong as if you had actually been adventuring together.

There are a few catches to the game, however. Much like communism D&D typically works out best on paper since it is difficult, at best, to account for the human element. (Or as 'the human element' is more commonly referred to in D&D, with a mixture of disdain and bemusement, 'the players'.) Although D&D's concept is quite romantic the reality can be much more akin to a wrench being tossed into a woodchipper (alternatively a vacuum encountering a length of shoe-string). The effect can be disconcerting to say the least, and worse, there are endless ways to disrupt the flow of a game. Players can be easily distracted which makes it hard to progress through events. In some groups treasure and loot are the source of endless squabbles. Players can be spiteful, either to the DM or to other characters. Cheating, tangents, confusion over rules, arguments over interpretation of rules, and small fires resulting from disputes over final arbitration of rules are frequent and difficult hurdles that must be cleared in order to run a successful game.

I know all of this now that I have years of experience with role-playing games like D&D  and particularly because I have spent most of my time playing as a DM. (D&D is not the only one of its kind for those that were unaware.) That is to say I spent most of my time running the game itself and trying to simultaneously screw-over and reward the players. Being a DM can be a thankless job, and learning how to be a good DM is the single, most prominent factor in determining whether or not a game runs smoothly. As a DM, you are everything in the game world but a player, as well as a mediator, arbitrator, rule-keeper, and shepherd of wandering attentions. It's the sort of job that you can't do well, or at least for long, unless you can consider being DM its own reward (more ramblings on DM'ing in a future post). It's for this reason that nearly every DM, at one point or another, decides that they want to try their hand at being a player for once. 

 That's where Patrick came in. For most of High School, a small eternity at that point in my life, I had been running my 4312 campaign. Although I generally enjoyed acting as DM, seeing how much fun my players regularly had left me wanting to try my hand at being a player too. Around that time Patrick inserted himself into our group of friends, claiming to understand 3rd edition D&D's rules and boasting of his past experiences as a DM. It was a bit jarring at first, though not unwelcome. D&D had always seemed to exist in the vacuum of my social circles so meeting someone else who had actually DM'ed was unprecedented. It was like being a master of a skill in small town. In theory there are other people who do the same thing, who are, perhaps, even better than you, but for all practical purposes they don't exist because you never run into them.

Regardless, when Patrick presented the opportunity I decided I would try being a player. Even from the few brief sessions I played back then, the difference in perspective was immediately apparent. As a DM your perception of the game world is frequently hazy except for certain well planned details. In the best of times the world is connected seamlessly together, every element seems to have its own history and purpose, and on-the-fly ideas fall into place like they were planned all along. At its worst your world can seem slap-dash, with story ideas and facets of the world nailed together with plywood scrap while random ideas teetering precariously like a haphazard pile of junk. As a player however, so long as the elements presented to you make sense, you will have no idea how flimsy or fleshed out the ideas holding the world together are. As a DM the world and the story are a thing, constantly growing and shifting to accommodate the players. As a player the world and the story are just there, lurking in the background. For the player the real story is being made with each roll of the dice, each decision, and every action they take. Players don't usually talk about D&D like a story because as a player it is an experience. It's not, "Hey remember the arc where there was an evil wizard was threatening a town with giant lizards?", it's remembered first hand like it actually happened; "Hey, remember the time we tracked down that wizard bastard who was terrorizing a town we were hired to guard?"

I'm still a little hazy on the first session I played with Patrick. I think I played a ranger, although possibly I was playing a druid. All I remember for sure was that I had two animal companions, a hawk and a falcon. In my first battle I tried to use my hawk to distract an ogre while I made a bow attack. The ogre who happened to be wielding a small tree as a weapon responded by wiping my hawk out with a single swing, ending what was probably an all-too-short friendship. The moral of the story? If you're a woodland creature you probably shouldn't befriend my ranger. That session wasn't particularly memorable beyond that because we never played that particular campaign again, but it was significant because I realized, either due to my age and experience, or perhaps just through repetition and a knowledgeable DM, that actually playing D&D 3rd edition wasn't just theoretical. It really could be done!

The next campaign I played with Patrick as a DM was much more instructive, albeit only slightly longer-lived. I played a monk assigned to keep peace between Tim, playing a half-demon, and Brandon, playing a half-angel. Again, I'm rather hazy on the details of why or how I was expected to keep the peace between such over-powered characters but the experience was rather telling. Over the course of several sessions I began to get a feel for how Patrick liked to DM. The thing about running a game, and with D&D in particular, is that there is a lot of room to have your own personal style. No two authors tell a story in the same way, each has their own voice, their own characteristic flair that makes the story their own. You wouldn't expect Tim Burton and Quentin Tarantino to design similar worlds, even if working from the same template, and that's how DM's are too. Patrick's worlds tended towards the fantastic, even for a fantasy game. He liked his players well-armed with magical trinkets and custom abilities. His campaigns were typically generous with gold and even from a low level the stakes were high and the characters extreme. In my head I sometimes compare Patrick's games to blockbuster action movies; they are melodramas that carry you swiftly from big event to astounding discovery while making it hard to complain that the sessions aren't exciting. And then there was the combat.

Combat is a big part of D&D. It's in the title almost: (loot) Dungeons & (slay) Dragons. So how you run combat has a big impact on the flavour of a campaign. In my 4312 campaign my battles were typically a very descriptive affair. You described what you wanted to attempt and then rolled to see if it worked, often followed by a detailed description of exactly what happened and how it did or didn't fail. Then again, my 4312 game was also very free-form by comparison to 3rd edition D&D. In Patrick's case D&D 3rd's combat was a well-oiled machine that only occasionally warranted an extended description when you used a special ability or the dice decided to roll toward the extremes. Under Patrick's DM'ing combat was swift and efficient, like clockwork. Hits, misses, and damage numbers fell from his lips like a a judge's verdict. You could call Patrick's combat sequences a bit dry at times, but you could never accuse him of dragging it out. Although the most impressive thing was that he could remember most of the conditional combat rules and often the specific rules for abilities without reference. Often combat was distilled down into a series of questions designed to present those of us, unlearned in the ways of the compendium of D&D rules (now with added appendixes for fantasy building codes and regulations), to make more informed combat decisions. For the most part that wasn't necessary though. Many of the rules in 3rd edition only existed in the event that there was something specific that a player wanted to do. There were dozens of options that provided the DM with tools designed to allow for what the player intended without unbalancing the game. Over several campaigns with Patrick, however, I confirmed what I had always suspected. Most of the rules weren't necessary. 

I went on to play a half dozen (usually short) campaigns with Patrick in the years that followed, and somewhere along the way I fell out of DM'ing. All things considered it probably wasn't being a player that did it. If I had to wager a guess it was trying to cope with the responsibilities of being an actual adult, because DM'ing wasn't the only thing I fell out of around that time. That period was roughly the equivalent of life punching me in the gut, taking all of my money, and then calling me mean things as it walked away. Long story short I was in no mood to be a DM at the time, but I digress. Instead of DM'ing I spent my time as a gnome warrior who wrestled bears and assaulted forts with only my cantrips (low level spells), or on other occasions as a paladin who later discovered that he followed an absent and possibly dead god. Throughout all the sessions I always ended up thinking about how I would run things though. Ideas for settings, towns, stories, and confrontations would leap into my brain and scream out for release. It wasn't that I unsatisfied with Patrick's DM'ing, it's that once you DM and do it well it's hard to go back to being a playerSha.

Years later, that is to say now, I am convinced that whatever you start as, player or DM, is what you eventually come back to. When you are fresh and just getting into role-playing for the first time you tend to gravitate towards what suits you the most. After the first few sessions you have either fallen into the player category or you are running the sessions as a DM (or secretly plotting to steal players from the group you started in once you realize you want to DM). In my case I've been a DM from the start. And although I've learned the joys of being a player I can't turn my back on DM'ing. As a DM it is up to you to create an immersive world, but you have endless possibility at your disposal, the only limit is your imagination. You have the opportunity to bring an entire world to life, to share your ideas in an engaging way that most arts struggle to achieve. It is your job, or rather, your privilege to allow your players to share in that feeling...oh, and also try to kill them. That too. 

(The last and final part of my Dungeons and Dragons series coming soon!)