Stop the epidemic! (Why ninjas are not cool)

Okay, I've been having this problem for a while now. And it's finally got to the point where I'm going to talk about it on my blog (get ready). I don't understand this American obsession with ninjas. I especially see it with 'nerd' cultures such as video games, comic books, anime, internet, etc. They use not only this word but the outfits for EVERYTHING and it's not cool anymore. I'm getting sick of things like Dr. Mcninja, Ask a Ninja, Naruto, and screen names like NinjaSquid, girlninja42, etc. Just because you add the word ninja to it does NOT make it cool! NO! Stop right now!

I just can't take it and it has nothing to do with bastardizing culture this time. Ninjas were just mercenaries in Japan so I have nothing against using their name for anything. I mean, mercenaries do anything for a buck right? Why not sell your title?

On another point they don't even look that cool. Samurai's had much more awesome outfits...At least they knew how to use color!

Anyways, I'm absolutely appalled at this overuse of ONE word. This internet thing needs more originality. Originality the word Ninja is slowly consuming with it's overuse!

Black Metal...the comic?

Anyone who has ever listened to (and appreciated) black metal can tell you that it's epic. Epic in a sense of ancient gods, gruesome battles, and intricate pagan rituals. Not all black metal fits in this but for the most part, it comes with the screeching vocals and double-kick drum beats that define it. This comic book was MADE for these fans. Anyone that has not listened to black metal or appreciated the amazing musical talent that makes it up will not really understand this book. However, if you are the type of person that emjoys these melodies of the dark then you will enjoy this book thoroughly.

The plot is about two orphans living in a foster home that find a sword. I won't go any farther than that because it would ruin anything else I say. It starts out kind of blah and childish. I first thought it was going to be more about making fun of kids with different musical styles, but by the 10th or so page it takes a different turn and engulfs you into an epic story.

I don't feel the artwork does the storyline justice since it harkens back to Genndy Tartakovsky's cutesy style (think Dexter's Laboratory). This also turned me off in the beginning since it seems to make the visuals a little less epic (I know, I keep using this word...great that you noticed too) than the reading. Nevertheless, there are a few scenes in the book that are done rather well and the artist has done a great job of telling the story in a dynamic way (you'd be surprised how hard it is to make a graphic novel READ in an epic way).

I highly recommend this book to anyone that even has interest in black metal. It's a great opening chapter to the epic-ness (I used it again) that is this genre and a wonderful way to introduce your local black metal fan to the world of comics.

Bed Time

A continuation to the short story I did a while ago:

The orbital pattern always caused the sun to glare through her window every time she tried to go to sleep. And every time she'd turn, pull the covers farther up her body and fade away. This time was different. Instead of dreaming she was getting a headache from trying to put herself to sleep. No matter what position she tried it wasn't comfortable, and in the end, she sat up and walked out of the bedroom.

The hallways were icy. Even with the carpeting and the imitation wood walls she could feel the cold chill of winter that clung to the steel structures that surrounded her little home. Wrapping herself into her night robe and donning her slippers she curled into her couch and touched the visual controller. Her wall lit up with the news.

"Eck." She touched the controller again and scrolled through the channels. "Nothing, nothing, nothing, boring, no." She finally settled for a classic movie and pulled herself farther into a ball.

The sounds of water flowing woke her from her soft sleep. At first she thought the Plasma was running the sound but opening her eyes revealed an old city street, no running water to be found. She looked around the room before heading down the hallway that led the living room to the bedroom. From there a puddle could be seen leading into the bath that sat in between the two. Running in she could see her waste recycling unit gurgling over with brown rancid liquid. Covering her mouth she desperately scanned the room for something to stop it. Rushing away from the disaster, she grabbed the closest Com and wired into the closest repair service she could find.

Hours later she sat, exhausted on her couch, the awful smell of wastes still in the air. She lifted the memo in her hand and read it one more time:

Wiring faulty and fried circuitry,
Should buy new unit
JBH Associates on Earth recommended.

She sighed and fell to the cushions...that can be taken care of tomorrow.

That Funky Beat

I was invited to a very underground punk rock show this week at a skate park located in a up and coming part of the metro area that I live in. This place was extremely hard to find. You had to walk through a back alley, to a small metal door, ask about the show, then be admitted through a series of walkways before you were in the space. Really underground.

Now I'm not a big fan of punk or skateboarding. Don't get me wrong, they're both very interesting however, I've just never been into it. So here I am, a 20-something year old, all dressed up in my work attire, watching people skate around the walls in this abandon warehouse. It was interesting to say the least, but I had absolutely nothing to do while waiting for the band to go on besides try to keep warm (did I mention there was no heat in February?), watch the skaters, and think. So that's what I did.

What made me different from these people? Obviously we have different musical tastes. Punk is one of the few genres I just have no interest in listening to. Though, for me being a 'business professional' I still listen to black metal, heavy IDM, D'n'B, and other forms of more aggressive music. I then began to wonder what they did for a living. Most of them seemed not to work the good 'ol 9-5 (which I'm so fond of calling it) since they could stay up until 2am on a Wednesday (of which I did not. I left by 8:30 and was home in bed by 10pm). So what do they do? And how would their listening to punk music shape their lives?

Here's the clencher, is there actually certain careers that attract certain genre listeners? For example, many of the people my sihaya works with listen to contemporary adult. People in my office listen to mainly indie/singer-songwriter. Did this help dictate them into these roles in life?

I'm now kind of interested in taking a survey of the types of music different people listen to and the jobs they occupy. I'd love to know if business executives are more prone to listen to Dragonforce, Busta Rhymes, or Bonnie Prince Billy.

Me, myself, and I

I, like most of the young college educated, am a part of facebook. And I've been noticing a popular spam going around called "25 things about me" where one lists 25 things about themselves people might not know. I understand why this is so popular however, I don't really like the reason I've come up with.

I know I shouldn't be one to speak, since I blog about my life experiences. Nevertheless I will defend this blog by saying this is for loved ones far away (that may miss my stupid antics) and for the sole purpose of getting me to continually exercise my writing ability. Plus, I feel that I'm not so much telling you what I'm like as showing my experiences and how I feel about them (aka you won't ever know what I had for dinner).

I think this ruffles my feathers more as an underlying piece of a pet peeve of mine...finding yourself. People waste lifetimes doing this and are usually never happy with anything. To me, these people spend too much time on self-speculation and not enough time on actually doing anything. My experience with people like this is that most don't really have long term goals. Their so set on looking within themselves they don't really look to see what's right in front of their noses. I really believe that trying to find yourself is like trying to locate the piece that makes a computer a computer. There's tons of things that help it run but no one thing makes it what it is. Stop trying to break yourself down into one category and start living your life to find out what pieces make it up.

Going back to the 25 things, this trend is very much like finding yourself. Let's center everything on us. Let's think about ourselves but not really what we can do with ourselves. Why care about writing things like that? You're going to be a completely different person in 7 years anyway. It's a waste of your time you could spend working towards a goal...or maybe writing a blog.