I Can Be Your Superman

The main thing I noticed in "Man of Steel," is the complete disregard for collateral damage. Every time there's a fight, it takes place in the most crowded area possible. For instance, a fight starts in the middle of a Kansas field, and quickly progresses to the Smallville downtown core so you can see all the product placements for Sears, 7-11 and IHOP. Of course you don't see it, but you'd have to assume the entire population died during a fight that involved trains being thrown and missiles being launched down Mainstreet. A bystander actually walks directly in front of Superman during the fight, because he has no clue where to go. Superman shouts at them to, "get inside," where it's presumably safe, then proceeds to level all the buildings.
It gets worse when Superman has his final fight in downtown New York/Metropolis. Half the city is already destroyed, but it was progressive so that fleeing victims could stay ahead of the destruction. The fight proceeds to knock down the remaining buildings at random.
At one point, the fight is taken to outer-space, where somehow, impossibly, they collide with a satellite, the mathematical odds are with are literally astronomical. They then ride that crashing satellite back to where the fight started. It's like watching Peter Griffin fight the Giant Chicken.

That's when I realized that the Superman movie was more ridiculous than any previous entries in the series. Remember when drunk Superman fought Clark Kent in a junk yard? That fight made more sense.
Superman also has less foresight or less respect for human life than the characters from "Dragon Ball Z." Whenever a fight broke out, Goku always made sure to take that fight to the middle of NOWHERE, where no one could get hurt. That's why the background of every Dragon Ball Z fight is barren hills. Superman is a worse superhero than a karate-fighting half-man/half-monkey alien with giant, spiky hair.
The new movie had very little levity compared to the other outings. There were only about four jokes in the whole movie. You can count them. Richard Pryor would be all over that shit.
For some reason, I expected that they were going to shoe-horn in Lex Luthor, but it never happened. All you ever see of him is an exploding truck with Lexcorp letters on it.There's a scene that mirrors an event in the Smallville TV series, but there's no certainty that Lex was involved.
The movie also illustrates the negative consequences of being "saved" by Superman. Superman saves a school bully during his childhood, and you see him go from being this awesome dude who uses phrases like, "Dickstain," to this sad ginger working at an IHOP. In another scene, he "saves" Lois, then just leaves her on a fucking glacier for dead.

The Day After the Day After Groundhog Day

You have to imagine that as soon as Phil is released from the never-ending nightmare his life has been, he'd pretty much kill himself. He's attempted suicide multiple times, if not countless times while living the same day over and over again. Why would that change for him as soon as things go back to normal? He's already done everything a person can do and likely lived longer than his normal, mortal life expectancy. He's basically been a God.
Plus, the only way he's able to escape his curse is by making Rita fall in love with him. That means his reward is living out the rest of his life with a woman who couldn't stand him a day earlier. It possibly took him centuries just to break the ice with this woman and if he screws up their delicate new relationship, does he go back to endless time until they wind up together again?
How accustomed has he gotten to living the same day over and over? Does he remember where his home is anymore?

Ass-Kick

Jim Carey has spoken out against his own movie due to it's level of violence. This happened months after filming wrapped. That's like saying no to herpes after banging a hooker. It's not like he was acting in front of a green screen the whole time and the violence was added in digitally like Jar-Jar. He knew what he was getting into. His reasoning is that he can't morally condone that level of violence after Sandy Hook, which was probably the fifth or sixth mass shooting that year. Still, that's a pretty brave stance... after he's already collected his pay cheque. It hearkens back to when Issac Hayes quit his roll on South Park after over a decade of performing, saying it wasn't appropriate for him. Matt Stone and Trey Parker responded by saying he cashed a lot of cheques before making that decision. Then they did an entire episode where his character became a brain-washed child molester.
If you look at Jim Carrey's career, there's always been violence. He got his start as Fire Marshall Bill as the only white guy on "In Living Color." His shtick was doing something incredibly violent to himself while informing others not to do the same. He was also a murder victim in a Dirty Harry movie, "Deadpool." That was early on. He would later branch off and star in, "23." Still, a guy's allowed to change.
Why would he publicly go out on a limb to trash his own movie over a single element? He's not the only one involved in the production. There's a lot of up-and-coming actors starring in that movie who could have their careers dampened by a guy who's twenty years past his prime. There's been a trend of actors trashing their own movies for being terrible lately, like Megan Fox, David Cross and even Shia LeBouf. In the past, there was more professionalism. If the actor didn't like the movie, they'd say it behind closed doors, not in interviews, or they'd skip the press circuit altogether. Harrison Ford probably hates Star Wars, but you'd never get him to confess. You can see it smouldering in his eyes, though.
Is Jim Carrey trying to link violent movies to real-life? There's been instances where movies like "Clockwork Orange" inspired real-life violence. The link is more real than the one between video games and violence. If you don't believe me, ask yourself if you've ever known anyone to try and peel out of the parking lot after seeing a Fast and Furious movie? The effect movies have seems almost instant. Still, it's a stretch to try and blame them. It's like how his ex-wife tried to blame Autism on vaccinations. The only difference is she had something concrete to go on, although the evidence she was using was later revealed to come from a fraudulent source. She was called an idiot for believing in a medical report, although she was just one victim out of many. Can you say Jim Carrey is an idiot for saying violent movies are equatable to violence?
Isn't that sort of right, though? Few movie explore the nature of violence and instead use it as a medium, like pornography. There's little regard for the justification of violence in movies other than an escalation of events. If you look Quentin Tarantino, his movies are about violence, but most audience members will walk away remembering the dialogue better than the violence. If you try to approach him about why he chooses violence, however, he'll fucking lose his mind. He's obsessed with it, much like audiences. As more studios gravitate toward the big opening weekend, there'll be an upward trend of violence to draw audience members in. Every super hero movie will contain violence, and there can be as many as five a year. "Kick-Ass 2" is just one of dozens of movies coming out with extremely violent overtones.

You're Going to Have Bad Time

Have you ever noticed the evil plans for the bad guys in movies are getting worse as time wears on?
For instance in "The Avengers" Evil Hawkeye's plan to rescue Loki was to try and crash the hellicarrier he was on while rescuing him. He had an incredibly narrow window for success and he made it worse by attacking the bridge and having his men try and stop repairs on the engines. Essentially, he's trying his hardest to kill his own boss during the entire rescue mission, who is also acting like an idiot. Loki willingly allowed himself to be captured and lets his entire plan slip to the Black Widow. Plus, he lets the two smartest men on the planet have a good long look at his ultimate weapon. Loki also had the ability to escape his cage at any moment using magic and he doesn't use it. Escaping the cage wasn't even an issue, as Nick Fury points out that he can just drop the cage into the ocean at any time. The thousand-foot fall failed to kill his half-brother, the God Thor, so it couldn't be expected to have any lasting effect on him.

Borderlands 2: Claptrap's Revenge

I'm noticing a difference in gameplay in the Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, which adds eleven levels to the cap. What I'm mainly noticing is how during combat in four-player mode, the screen basically turns into an acid trip. Everyone is firing off elemental effects, grenades and AOEs as fast as they can pull the trigger. If you're in close combat it's virtually impossible to see what you're even shooting at with all the coloured blotches and numbers flashing over the screen, because you're kicking so much ass.
With new Bunkers & Badasses downloadable content, I'm wondering why they haven't implemented something like this before. It's the only content in the entire series that truly extends the main storyline instead of breaking away from it. In it, you're technically role-playing as three Vault Hunters from the first Borderlands game and Tiny Tina, who are role-playing as your Vault Hunter in a make-believe game, which is a bit trippy. While it's an imaginary scenario, your character is technically a real part of their real universe, and the imaginary items and experience you gain carries over, which is trippier. It's happened before in Borderlands where you were technically just acting out a story being told by Marcus, but the multi-layered aspect of the story makes this iteration a bit deeper. Really, the story is a metaphor for Tiny Tina coming to terms with Roland's death.
Tiny Tina herself was accused of being a racist character on Twitter for using ghetto slang while being a white adolescent... in the future on an alien world. She doesn't drop that routine in the new content, using phrases like, "shorty," often. Her depiction of Roland, a black character, is more racially tinged than the real character is, which is odd. Yes, Roland's black, but never acted "black," before. In the new content, Roland's just a character in the game being acted out by Tina, and uses the same slang as her. Is that racist? I found it odd that Tiny Tina was singled out as being racist, as she was never that big a part of the game before. She was much a part of the game as a bar full of drunken Irish stereotypes that no one complained about. Borderlands also features a black and Hispanic character as one of the four NPC Vault Hunters and has an interracial romance, plus at least one of the four original playable Vault Hunters is black (there's no telling who or what Zero is). The game doesn't get credit for that. There's always a strange juxtaposition in the game. For instance, there's the over-sexualixed Moxie, and her polar opposite, Ellie. Meanwhile, while you can play as a black chracter, or a female character, all of the bad-guys you shoot are white dudes (except for in the Hammerlock DLC, which no one plays).

Things That Haven't Killed Me

Growing up in the 80's, you're schooled in the dangers of the world by your parent, grandparents, teachers, guest speakers, after-school specials, and the trifecta that was He-Man, G.I. Joe and the Transformers. I'm sure there were anamorphic vegetables with religious views somewhere in there too. Their combined efforts kept you alive longer than you had any right to be, you drug addict.
Some of their advice was just bullshit, though. I don't know whose lives they were tailored for, but it certainly wasn't mine. For instance: Do you know what to do when you step in some quicksand? I do. The key is: Don't PANIC! Don't move, and you've sink slower, which will give you more time to contemplate your slow, agonizing death of drowning in mud. Don't think about how they'll never find your body. Try to call for help, or grab a nearby vine and pull yourself to safety. Use your belt as a laso in a bind. Don't have any of those things? Nice knowing you, Fucko!
Has your car done a wicked flip off a cliff into the ocean? DON'T PANIC! Simply take your glass breaker out of your glove department. Don't have one? Why were you operating a vehicle without a glass breaker? You've doomed yourself. DOOMED! Trying kicking out the windows? Doesn't work? Maybe because you're a weak little baby. Try moving to the rear of the vehicle where there's a pocket of air. That'll give you more time to regret not packing a glass breaker.
Did you just have unprotected sex/protected sex/kiss a girl/sit on a public toilet seat/give someone directions? You have AIDS, and you're going to die.
Did you just smoke a joint for the first time? You're going to die with a needle in your arm.
I remember the single worst piece of advice I was ever given during my childhood came from school, in Grade 1, when the teacher showed us a slide-show about some vegetable-kids. The advice was to never run from a serious incident, or else the police will think you're a suspect. That was in Grade 1. So if someone were to burst in though that door at that second and start shooting up the place, I shouldn't run, or at the very least I should mosey away, because the cops would think I might be involved somehow.

Ya'll Need To Stop Actin' Like a Bunch of Idiots

In the past while I've noticed a resurgence in PC (Political Correctness), which once reached it's peak in the 90's while I was growing up. This time around it's focused on fringe groups that were mostly ignored, or didn't exist five years ago.
There's been small changes, like First Nations now being referred to as First Peoples. Bi-racial groups are getting more attention that ever before with shows like "Key and Peele" focusing on the issue, but people still label President Obama as "black" as opposed to "bi-racial" because it's considered a bigger win for "blacks."  South-East Asians and East-Indians are getting noticed more too due to a larger media presence.Gays and Lesbians are more open about "coming out" to the point where it's not even shocking to learn a well-recognized celebrity is gay.
Those changes are all well and good and a part of a healthy society. On the other end there's people who have no clue what the fuck they're doing or talking about.
Today, for instance, Paula Deen was SHIT-CANNED for having admitted to using the "N" word (I think that word is NIGGER). The controversy isn't that she dropped the N-Bomb, it's that she freely admitted to using it. No one knows the context in which she used the word. For all we know she could have been hanging with her homies in the crib, sippin' 40 and listening to freestyle when she let slip, "Damn, nigger, that shit is tight," or something along those lines. She confessed to having used a word and profusely apologized for having used it, and basically lost an empire. Nigger is a racist, and hurtful word, there's no question about that, but this is a tree falling in the woods scenario. If no one know what you said, does it hurt anyone? I've said some pretty nasty shit about you behind your back. Am I being mean to you? Yes, but not to your face... your scrunched up James Franco face.
If she's trying to reform for her racist past, doesn't that make her a better person, or is it "once a racist always a racist?" Martin Luther King's dream of tolerance would never have worked if it wasn't for forgiveness. Can people stay mad at her? She's like Katie Perry as a grandmother that wants to bake you cookies.
That's just one example from today. The other comes from Mike Krahulik, better known as "Gabe," the illustrator for Penny-Arcade and co-organizer for PaX. Today, he was attacked for saying women have vaginas. Someone, likely a troll, decided he was being prejudiced against transgendered people. There was an immediate backlash against him, and he didn't come out looking too good.
Seriously, though, can we not define women as, "people with vaginas?" Do we have to include a fringe in there to satisfy everyone? Transgenered people are little understood by anyone, probably including factual transgendered people. They get lumped together with Gays and Lesbians to confuse the issue of human sexuality more than it already is. I personally take offense at anyone with a dick demanding to be called a "woman" in the same sense that I'd be offended at being asked to call an unlicensed acupuncturist a, "doctor." If you self-identify as a woman, that's your preference, not mine. I don't have your psyche profile and chromosone test on file to ratify your belief. If a woman comes up to me and tells me she's a lesbian, I'll believe her, or at least believe she doesn't want to fuck me. If a man comes up to me and tells me she's a woman, I'm going to have to ask to talk to a doctor, or at least see some pussy.
There's documented cases of people believing they're wolves. That doesn't mean they are, or that a doctor is going to give them a fur transplant. There's also people who have an intense psychological aversion to having more than one arm. I shit you not. It scars their psyches to have two arms and they'll attempt to amputate their own limbs. Why does a man not wanting to have dick get the special treatment? Is it not fair to ask that question? What you do with your own bodies is your own business, but don't be surprised if people don't, "get you."
My personal feeling is that we're all getting a little soft, or at least a little soft in the head. Two front-page stories in The Province this week were about a handicapped boy being "discriminated against."
This is that discrimination:

Horrifying, isn't it? It really breaks your heart, which incidentally is the title of that story. Look at that kid there, separated from the rest of his class because his WHEELCHAIR DOESN'T FIT ON A FUCKING BENCH. The mother started a shitstorm because her son was as physically close to the rest of his class in the photo without having to exit his medically necessary wheelchair and without him obscuring the rest of the children, who are all nice and centered. If you're a photographer, do you wan to inconvenience a disabled child by making him get out of the chair, or else inconvenience the rest of the class by having them stand awkwardly around him in the foreground?

They made them do a second photo, even though there's nothing wrong with this one, and this is what they ended up with:

How shitty is that? That was posted in The Province, by the way. That was considered, "news." Meanwhile, one of the largest cities in Canada and most of the prairies are flooding.

I'm beginning to think that the expectation is that people literally accept any shit anyone give them. No one is that understanding. No one. Not even religious leaders, or world leaders. Not even Oprah or Jesus, most likely. This generation is expected to be the most accommodating, least racist generation that ever lived in the history of ever. Isn't that a little bit too much pressure? Can't anyone wig out and call some a Jebo? I don't even know what that is, but it sounds racist, so it must be. No one is allowed to hate, for any reason, even though it's a human emotion, and thus isn't grounded in logic or reason. No one is allowed to slip up, or not consider every variable. Soon, we're going to have to accept Bronies for what they are. Bronies, by the way, are the grown men obsessed with My Little Ponies. No one can even tell if they're joking, or not, or if they're genuinely disturbed. They're going to come up to you and say they're legally married to a fucking plastic pony doll, and you'll have to accept it, because that's where society has gone.

Tard Trek

I keep thinking about the plot holes in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Like, all day.
SPOILERS.
When Kirk and Khan were doing the ship-to-ship jump in deep space and Kirk's HUD went down, why did Khan rescue him? It was the perfect opportunity to be rid of him. No one could pin his death on him because it would be an accident.He had more than one opportunity to let Kirk die, or else kill him. In fact, I think he had four chances.
The first came during his terrorist attack on the meeting. Khan was strafing the entire side of the building with heavy rounds. The entire building should have been turned into Swiss Cheese, but it was like he was missing on purpose. He even gives Kirk the evil-eye as he teleports away.
Then Khan saved the entire Away Team on the Klingon home world, even though he correctly surmised they were either there to capture or kill him. He let himself be captured by Kirk as a risk.
Then there's the incident during the jump, but after that there's the sequence where they're fighting their way through the ship. Kirk loses sight of Khan several times, and does little to support him. It would have been effortless for Khan to betray him at that point, but instead he gets betrayed. It's almost as if Kirk's the real bad guy of this movie.
Does Khan like Kirk? Khan freely admits to missing his cryogenically frozen family. Is he lonely and wants a friend? Could the whole movie have been resolved if the two went out to the peelers? Since the whole subplot of the movie is how Kirk and Spock's bromance is breaking down, was Khan going to be his replacement?
Strangely, Khan's really the one who actively stopped a war between the Federation and the Klingons. If he hadn't destroyed that weapons facility and exposed the plot, Earth would be at war with a superior force. Even though he's clearly sadistic in the means he carries out his revenge, it's inadvertently serving a greater good. Even in the end when he's trying to crash-land the ship into the Federation headquarters, he'll end up saving millions of lives by completely shutting down the Federation and their secret plans to go to war with the Klingons.
That's just one character of many. On the other end, there's the technology. The teleporters on the Enterprise are a plot device more than a technology. They only work when it's the least dramatic. Half the movie seemed to be about the cast explaining how they couldn't teleport person A because of situation B, so they'll have to do C instead. Meanwhile, Khan teleports from Earth to the Klingon homeworld with absolutely no difficulties or problems. The movie starts with a scene where they can't teleport Spock, who's a mile away, because of a volcano.
If you've ever really thought about teleporters, and how they work, you'd realize how pointless the Enterprise and everything on it is. All you really need is a teleporter instead of a spaceship. It's faster, safer, and it doesn't blow up every five seconds.Have you ever noticed how during space battles they're still able to teleport from ship to ship, despite everything blowing up and there being shields on both ships specifically designed to prevent this from happening? If they can do that, why bother moving people around to try and disable the ship? Just teleport out a chunk of the other ship's Warp Core and they're done. If you can teleport people, you can teleport bombs. Or just teleport their captain off of the ship and call it a day. It doesn't matter if you can't get a lock on him, because you're trying to kill him anyway. Take half of him if you can.You can teleport literally anything. If they're about to fire torpedoes on you, just teleport the torpedos away, or teleport the control panel they were about to press, and laugh your balls off at them on the monitor.
Also, why didn't they have radiation suits for the Warp Core? If you have time to argue and fight with your shipmates and knock them out cold, you have time to suit up. I just resolved a major issue in two Star Trek movies.

Avatarded

The plot to the movie, "Avatar," revolves around the acquisition of the ridiculously named, "Unobtainum." The bad guys in the movie will do anything to get it, even commit genocide. At the end of the day, it's just a floating rock, which isn't particularly useful when the human species has already mastered interplanetary travel. Instead, they should have paid more attention to another discovery made on Pandora: Immortality.
There's two instances in the movie where they attempt to permanently transfer the consciousness between humans and their Pandoran Avatars. The first fails perhaps because the woman involved is too close to death. After the second and successful transfer, there'd be no reason not to continue experimenting. After all, Avatars are bigger, better and stronger than their human counterparts. If the technique works, then any human with a few million to spend on an Avatar could take a trip to Pandora and become virtually immortal. There's no reason why you couldn't continue and keep transferring from body to body as each one gets old and worn out. You could live forever as long as the infrastructure was in place.
The planet itself seems to be a storage bank for every soul who ever lived on it's surface and was connected to it. That means that even in death you could possibly upload yourself into a new Avatar.
There's no explanation as to what powers this strange phenomenon. It could be the very Unobtanium they're digging up.They're probably wasting it all on hover boards when they could be making themselves Gods.
The other thing is: If Unobtanium floats and the motherlode is under the tree where the Pandoran tribe lives, why hasn't it broken free and floated off during the last few millenia? Mining a floating rock couldn't be particularly difficult. Any earthquake or volcano probably blasts the stuff up into the atmosphere, where it could easily be picked up. Also: There's floating mountains in the movie, which are undoubtably full of Unobtanium. Why aren't they digging up those instead of going to war with Pandora? You wouldn't even have to land the spaceship to fill up your hull. You could just swoop down and scoop it up. The only thing holding those rocks in place during that once scene were some vines.

Subliminal Advertising

I'm not sure if anyone's picked up on this yet, but look at this shit:

Look closely:

That says, "Mom." As in, "Mom's cooking." That's subliminal advertising.
Also: Red. Red is an appetite stimulant. That's why fast food joints use red everywhere they can. McDonalds, Wendys, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and more all use red in everything from their roofs to their packaging.That's not just to make them stand out, it's to make you think, "Boy, I'm hungry." So really, you're being brain washed by at least two things in this image.

Tablet VS. TV

Today someone was mentioning how you can use you tablet in integration with the the Next Gen Battlefield 4 to call in strikes, etc (according to E3). This reminded me of the Wii U, which I have, which I forget I have. The Wii U is a Wii with a tablet. Playing video games on you TV with a tablet is a chore. It's an experience that no one should live though. To this day, Lego Undercover for the Wii U is the most fully integrated console/tablet experience, and it sucks. Scirbblenauts for the Wii U simulatenously plays on the TV and tablet. Guess which one you look at more? The tablet.
Ever have the TV on (playing TV shows) and use a tablet on at the same time? I'm used to multitasking, but in this case, the tablet wins every time. By multitasking, I mean I might be on the internet, watching TV, playing DS/PSP, and reading a book all at the same time. Having a tablet means I'm doing all four at once, which means I'm only using a tablet. That counts as one thing. If the TV is on in the background I'll be all, "Huh? John Oliver is hosting the Daily Show now?"
The Xbox One is fully integrated with Kinect 2.0, which no one wants to use. It's all motion-controlled and voice command. Have you ever used voice commands with a non-living thing? Socom 2 and Lifeline first introduced me to the world of voice commands. In Lifeline, a PS2 game controlled by voice commands, you were treated like a schizophrenic rapist while asking for your character to, "DODGE!" Fact: character wouldn't dodge although that was one of the required actions to play the game.
The problem with Kinect is that it supposedly understands natural hand gestures.Who's hand gestures? An Itallan's? Who use hand-gestures naturally? Does the Kinect discriminate against you if you have tiny hands?

Parking Parkour

Today I had to stop at the courthouse here in town to drop off and pick up my wife. While there, I noticed numerous "towaway zone" signs, which didn't affect me really, because I wasn't parking to begin with. Then, I noticed a handicap spot where not one, but two drivers had double-parked behind, effectively blocking the legally parked driver in the handicap zone (I didn't check to see if there was a decal in the window). Our courthouse is part of a public-service area which includes a firehall, an art museum, a park, a library and most importantly: a police station. A traffic cop has only to walk a few hundred feet from the station door to ticket these cars. Also, I'm assuming the courthouse is full of lawyers and judges, all of whom are feeling quite litigious on any given day.
I couldn't wrap my head around what I was even seeing with the park job and I wish I had a camera. The handicapped spot was part of a pair that were side-by-side. They were fenced in by the curb on either side of the spots. Now: the other handicapped spot was empty for some reason as the driver of the third vehicle had parked INFRONT of the spot. That meant that the driver in the occupied handicapped spot couldn't back up straight because there was a vehicle there, and even though the spot next to him was empty, he couldn't slide over and back up there because there was ANOTHER car parked next the car parked behind him, and curbs everywhere else. Unless he jumped the curb, drove across the grass and onto the sidewalk and onto the busy street in front of him, he wasn't getting anywhere.Also: there were other available spots nearby. The parking lot wasn't full.
No one had ambassador plates.
In my mind, I imagined these people were all in court fighting charges of doing the thing they were currently doing.

Batman and Robins

Robin, as a superhero, has always been the brunt of jokes. Maybe it has something to do with the lime green speedo and pixie boots he's wearing, or maybe it has everything to do with that.

Less experienced and not as strong as his Dark Knight counterpart, Robin's often called, "useless," as if he's Green Arrow. Robin mainly makes up for his lack of years and physical dominance with his uncanny agility and "moxie."Also: dying. Three out of five Robins have died.Two have come back to life. Neither of those two were interested in taking up the, "Robin," mantle again and became their own heroes in their own image.
Robin had become inseparable from Batman, but actually it was Dick Grayson who first owned the name and costume. His family, the Flying Graysons, wore the costume during their performances as acrobats, where they were compared to robins in their daring feats of flight. In that sense, everything about Robin makes sense. His family was murdered, and he added the domino mask to the costume to fight crime in retribution, using flips and kicks in his combat arsenal. It's not like Batman's parents were murdered by fruit flies, so he had to become a bat to fight them. Robin was Robin before there was a Robin, or even a Batman, for that matter.
After his parents were murdered, Batman takes in Dick Grayson as his ward, and that's where things get weird. Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson share personal tragedies in common, moreso than a sense of justice. It's like their alliance is based on therapy. Batman, however, can't move on. Batman's always assumed that his years of practice and hard work have made him the ultimate crime fighter, The question has always lingered, "What would Bruce be like if his parents were still alive?" He'd be the spoiled playboy he pretends to be. Robin, on the other hand, has always been Robin. He's the one who's able to cope with losing his parents instead of being consumed by it. Bruce wasn't much younger than Robin when his parents were murdered, but Robin became the hero he needed to be almost instantly, while it took Bruce over a decade of training. Robin just has the natural ability. Bruce's years will always make him better, and Robin will always be play catch-up, but he never had the innate skill, just the determination.
Bruce has always assumed the role of the father figure, without really knowing what that means. He tries to be a guide for Robin, because he knows the feeling of losing someone he loved. Deep down, though, it's Robin who feels sorry for Bruce. Bruce is the one who's trapped in the moment and lets himself be consumed by it. It's his strength, but time and again it's proven to be his greatest weakness. Robin knows he lost his parents. He's not going to let that fuck up his relationships and his life.Bruce is still, essentially, that little boy who lost his parent, and Robin is there to pat him on the back and try to cheer him up.
That goes for all the Robins. They all have their personal tragedies. The ironic thing is, if they had been in Bruce's shoes at the same age his parents were murdered, they probably could have done something to stop the shooter. Dick Grayson is a lighting-quick acrobat who regularly beats up adults three times his size. Jason Todd is a street punk who goes too far too often. Timothy Drake was intelligent enough to deduct Batman's real identity from a single clue. Stephanie Brown saw her own father become a super villain and became a super hero just to stop him.Damion Wayne was a ninja assassin who had to scale it back just to roll with Batman.

Used Games

Xbox One is planning on charging you extra for playing used games. It may be similar to how EA charged users for a one-time user-specific code that came free with Battlefield 3, but any subsequent user had to pay to play online, which is the entire point of the game. People are calling it a "tax," and now gaming publishers are chiming in saying they want their cut of the "tax" There's no word on how this "tax" is being distributed, but one assume that Xbox keeps it. They've found a way to become Gamestop, which makes its money on selling, buying, and re-selling the same games over and over again, only now the person being charged extra never has to leave the house to be be shafted.

The gaming industry is as terrified of resale as they are of piracy. My question is: why? Most games now come with bonus paid downloadable content that when tallied together can cost more than the game itself. Most of this content seems like it was willingly withheld from the game at release. The entire structure of paid content and the way it was distributed was conceived as a way to keep people loyal to the games they owned so they wouldn't try and sell them off for at least a year. That's not going to stop if the resale industry dries up because it's too lucrative.If resale ends, however, people are going to rethink shelling out $60 on release dates in case they wind up with a lemon they literally can't pawn off.

Environmentallity

Right now, there's not one, but two science fiction/fantasy movies out with a strong environmental message: After Earth and Epic.

My question is: why? Every summer or so, audiences get this ham-fisted environmental message crammed down their throats. A lot of time, it pays off. Avatar, the highest grossing movie ever made, can have it's plot boiled down to: trees are good. Wall-E and The Day After Tomorrow are both high grossing pictures with the most blatant: "Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute," message. Even M. Night Shyamalan's last movie, The Happening, was about trees killing people in self-defense (I never said all these movies were good).

Still, I have to ask why? Is it doing any good? Asking people to make small changes in their lives to improve the environment isn't going to change the world. Right now, we have Hipsters, who are the most environmentally conscious group since the Hippies. All the bike-riding and upcycling they're doing is never going to offset the people cruising around in their SUVs. Converting a few people with a positive message for change isn't actually going to change anything.

I'm singling movies out because: People have to drive to the movies in their SUVs to sit in air-conditioned theater and eat bio-engineered popcorn out of a bag that won't be bio-degraded and instead find it's way to the trash. Then they come out with the DVDs and Blu-Rays, only nobody really uses those anymore, so they end up in the landfills, or if not they will in ten years.Even the stores selling them will be gutted in two years, and the theaters showing the movies will be torn down in five to make way for something bigger and better, which also will be torn down and replaced in short-form.

Avatar took 10 years to make.Think about all the man-hours logged. The amount of electricity they must have used just to develop the CGI special effects that never made it to film is astronomical. Think of all the generations of computers they must have gone through. There's no way they reached the final product using the same computer they started with.

Did any family leave Wall-E and plant a tree? Or did they buy their kid a Wall-E plastic figure made out of non-recyclable parts?