The Penultimate Genius

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Thursday, March 01, 2012

Democratic Politicians Not Supporters of Democracy

Over the last few years, we've seen a lot of this from the Democratic Party:

Iowa House Democrats protested Republican plans to debate two gun measures on Wednesday by leaving the state Capitol and refusing to return.

They eventually came back, but the funny thing is the Democrats first instinct is to run away when faced with a legislation debate they can't defeat in a floor vote. And, as we've seen at the federal level, when they're in the majority, they just ram whatever legislation they want down the throats of the citizenry, without debate if debate would expose the legislation as being unwanted by the citizenry. As the ObamaCare process showed, they'll also vote against the will of the people on bills none of them have even read.

And, somehow, Democrats think they know what's best for me.

Labels: File Under Dept. of, Over-Caffeinated Political Observations, Random Commentary

William Young 8:52 AM # 0 comments

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Things to Do in Bridgeport Before Your Dead

Since 2010, I've been retooling my personal life. One of the things I've been doing is teaching myself how to play the guitar. In the time I've been doing this, I've come to the realization I'm not a very good teacher. Or student. Oh, the things I've learned the hard way.

Anyway, I have been making progress and can almost kinda-sorta play the guitar. It's probably more accurate to say that if I continue to progress at the pace I am currently going, I will be able to "play" the guitar sometime within the next year.

This wasn't always going to be the case. I had plateaued last summer into a guitarist who just wasn't able to do fingering very quickly and who had to think too much about making chords. I tried and tried and tried, but was getting nowhere.

And then I got Rocksmith for Christmas and everything changed. You just plug your guitar into your PS3 and read tabs (which I had to learn to read, but learned fairly quickly), and you quickly are addicted to playing real-life rock'n'roll guitar leads. The game builds slowly, if you will, by starting you out with songs and only having you play some of the notes. Actually, this is how it always works. You get a song by some band and the game starts with a note here and there and sees how well you can find it on the fret board.

Then it judges your ability and adds more notes. Then it adds combos. Then chords. All the time, it adds in slides and bends and sustains and sees if you can figure out how to do them. Can't figure it out? There's a tutorial for each song to show you the techniques needed to play the song.

The more you play a song, the more the software evaluates your ability. As you get better, you get more of the notes to try, until you are eventually playing every note and doing every technique.

But the "game" is more than that, as the "game" part of it is you are constantly evolving as an artist, working on playlists to perform at venues in front of "live" audiences. This is the "fun" part of the game, I suppose, and it's kinda neat to see people rocking out to you and recording you with their smartphones. Play a setlist well enough, and you get an encore. I don't know anything about the Guitar Hero/Rock Band games, but I've seen the fake instruments and never been interested in playing.

This is for real. And it's real fun. Especially if you want to learn how to play, which I do. I can't afford weekly instructions, but between this game, the various online tutorials you can find (and, new-to-me Garage Band instructional videos) and some of the how-to books I've been using, I finally feel like I'm making progress. I'm not looking to start a band, but I'd like to be able to sit around and play a song in the backyard while hanging with the family.

Learning to play is something I've wanted to do since I was a kid. I tried to teach myself in college, but ... well, let's just say I didn't have any idea how to teach myself back then, and then my guitar got knocked over and the neck snapped off, ending the endeavor after only a few months.

So, this a "bucket list" bullet point that's being checked off. Next up: SCUBA. Then: skydiving. And possibly: sword fighting (fencing?).

Labels: 2010:Year of Change, File Under Dept. of, Random Product Reviews

William Young 8:41 AM # 0 comments

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Here Comes the Sun

Okay, do we really need to keep explaining that Anthropogenic Global Climate Change is nothing but a shameless attempt by leftist-collectivists (aka - organized crime gangs) to steal money through taxes from those who have money?

Alec Rawls deconstructs the latest attempt by the UN to enforce its worldview that humans are causing the various "changes" in the world's climate. You can click over there and read the whole thing, or you can read this alternate explanation: the sun.

Yup. If you've ever wondered what the primary driver of climate (temperature variation through the ages) might be, it turns out that the sun - that big nuclear fireball in the sky - is the primary culprit. Sometimes it burns hotter than other times. Sometimes it burns colder (less hot).

Most people have an almost intuitive sense of how this works, because they see/experience it on a personal level all the time. You see, in the summer, it's usually hotter than the rest of the year, because of the way the planet is pointed at the sun. Then, it starts cooling off in the fall until it gets cold in the winter (relatively speaking, of course). Then spring starts warming up and, hey look at that, summer returns and it's hot again.

Did humans do anything during those changes in climate to alter the temperature? Nope. Did the climate dramatically change based on the planet's relationship to the sun? Yup. How do you explain that? Well, you could say the sun has something to do with.

Or you could blame man's use of fossil fuels.

Labels: Delusional Points of View, Filler Material, Random Commentary

William Young 8:58 AM # 0 comments

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Barbarians at the Gates

For twenty years or so, I have tried and tried and tried to break-in to the fiction business. I have had zero success at even garnering the hint of a whisper of a shadow of a rumor of notice from the gatekeepers. For twenty years, I have either been mailed form letters rejecting me or been ignored, the stamps from my SASE's likely steamed off the return envelope and used by the agent/publisher to reject other writers.

So, for twenty years, I had no idea if I was any good. Still don't, but I still write all the time and try to get published.

Only now, I have flanked the publishing industry and use ePub/eBook methods to get my fiction out. I use Smashwords and Amazon's Kindle publishing services, and have self-published paperbacks through CreateSpace (an Amazon outlet), so my stuff is out there and available. It has sold. Not well, but it is selling somewhere, every day, and I have hopes that someday something (The Divine World, hopefully) will catch fire and I'll be able to earn my keep writing fiction.

But as the world changes and morphs into the unrecognizable future, those of us leading the charge around the gatekeepers of culture occasionally come across some fuddy duddy cultural luddite who bemoans the fact that he no longer knows what's any good in the arts because there are too many people producing art. Witness Roger Kimball as he clues the world in to the fact that it is now too difficult for him to figure out what kinds of novels to read, because there are too many to choose from.

He wants someone to tell him who the good writers are, so he can read them and let the rest of the world know he's read the "good books," and not wasted his time on beach reads or throw-a-way thrillers. Or any of that Young Adult vampire crap.

I was going to write a lengthy screed about this subject (which is mirrored in music and film and television, now that there's so much choice in all of it that anybody can, essentially ghettoize themselves in a micro-genre and be unaware of the "great artists" in the other genres), but this commenter summed up my points quite nicely. In short, there are no elites keeping watch over the culture any more, and anybody with an idea and a way to catch notice can get an audience. In any of the arts.

So, in this brave new future, it is up to the consumer to decide what he likes to read/watch/hear and surf his own cultural art wave. People waiting to be told what is good will be told by their friends, not some critic in a newspaper. Plus, since so many outlets let you sample the material before purchase, you don't have to buy the latest novel/album by someone and take it home only to be disappointed later that it wasn't very good: you, consumer, have a choice!

As we've moved into this post-elite-chosen future, the thing I've noticed - about books and music, especially - is how much choice I have and how enriching it is to find new artists with new ideas. I'm not forced to buy the latest Stephen King horror novel for my beach trip, nor am I required to read some boring "genius" like Jonathan Franzen just because he's the chosen one of the Arts Upper Class (note: I liked The Corrections, I just chose him at random).

There's a reason why indie bands have street cred among fans in the music community, and it's not because they suck because they couldn't get a record deal. The same is true for the arts across the spectrum: there are too many of us (and, yes, most of us do suck, as 90% of any art form sucks, at least 90% of the time, including most of the Officially Arts Products that are sold to us through Official Arts Channels [doubt me? 99% of Hollywood movies completely suck, 99.5% of Young Adult vampire romance novels suck, and etc...]).

The rule of the future for the arts is simple: figure out what YOU like, and support it with your money and time.

You can support me by purchasing (and reading) my fiction either through Smashwords or Amazon. Enjoy!

Labels: Delusional Points of View, File Under Dept. of, Random Commentary

William Young 8:34 AM # 0 comments

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Cities of the Dead

Yeah, I keep forgetting to update this place with links to the latest stories. Sorry. I'm now up to story 15 in the series, all of which can be found at my Smashwords author page, and at my Amazon author page. Most of the stories are free at Smashwords, and can be downloaded in a variety of eBook formats, including some non-eBook formats (.html, .pdf). The Amazon stuff is all $0.99/copy, so you can make me a few shekels by getting them at Amazon if you feel like supporting your friendly neighborhood fiction writer.

Here's the latest zombie story at Amazon:

Labels: Cities of the Dead

William Young 9:54 AM # 0 comments

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Electability and Santorum (or, the latest non-Romney)

For some reason, the VRWC has been pushing Romney since early last year. Fine. He looks like a president should look like, if Central Casting were in charge.

It's not. And by "central casting," I mean the Republican establishment, which many in the "establishment" and many who wish to be in the establishment claim doesn't exist, because of various theories involving coordination, membership cards and street credibility.

Now that Rick Santorum has risen to the top of the heap as the non-Romney, everyone in the establishment is now against him, some of them offering theoretically plausible reasons (he's too socially conservative, he comes across as a moral scold, he's a GASP! "big spender"). A lot of entrenched Republican elites are determined to derail his candidacy (fine, that's what primaries are for). The establishment types are also very touchy when someone comes along to tell them they're not sufficiently on the anti-Obama side if they're toying with not voting for Santorum if he's the nominee.

But, please, stop telling me Santorum's unelectable. He would be running against Obama, and almost nobody wants a second Obama term. Not even the precious independents who supposedly scare so easily at social issues (as the establishment experts warn). At the end of the day, I have a feeling most people will vote for whoever the non-Obama is come November, and at this point, finding that candidate is all that's necessary. I don't really think the Republicans need a neo-Reagan or a polished technocrat who understands "business" or somebody with a nice personal narrative and really great hair. The Republicans need a guy who will stand up to Obama and bring a gun to a knife fight. The Republicans need a guy who will dress down the mainstream media and call bullshit.

Santorum is doing that.

Romney's never done it.

Of course, Romney could always "sack up," but at this point, a lot of people on the right are going to figure he's just faking it for the primaries and will wimp out into full-fledged Moderate Man in the general, and if there's one thing I'm kinda pretty certain about, it's that the average anti-Obama voter is itching for is someone who will take the fight to that preening, condescending, self-important, America-scold who lied his way into the White House four years ago. They want his lies exposed, and they want someone who will fight.

And only a fool or a liar would argue that Santorum would try to set up some sort of theocracy to replace the burgeoning socialist totalitarian nightmare state the Democrats have been erecting for decades.

At the end of the day, you're either for more Obama or not, and all of the polls I've seen have the American public siding with ousting Obama.

Labels: Over-Caffeinated Political Observations

William Young 8:13 AM # 0 comments

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The Shot Heard Round the World

People are just now beginning to fight back against the ever-encroaching enemies of freedom. And by "fight," I mean "shoot." If things keep trending this way, expect more of this. Freedom-loving people will only be pushed so far by the totalitarian statists of the left and their never-ending attempts to constrain their liberty.

I mean: someone cares about pigeons? Really? Rats with wings? Seriously?

In the end, these idiots will be shot, not just their toy helicopter. Instead of spying on hunters, they should find something meaningful to do with their lives, like masturbating to muppet porn while drinking lite beer in darkened basements. Assholes.

Labels: Delusional Points of View, File Under Dept. of, Random Commentary, Things That Drive Me Crazy

William Young 8:49 AM # 0 comments

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The Death of 1000 Cuts

Ace muses on this idea, that every day, or, perhaps, every-so-often, some government bureaucrat or elected official creates a new regulation or law that takes something that was legal and makes it illegal, or, at least, difficult to do. Often, there's no real reason for the change in legal status other than that some official identified an issue and decided to deal with it.

Usually this happens because the "official" believes his "job" is to fix "problems," so he can tell voters what he did for them.

This is how Gulliver was tied down by the Lilliputians: one tiny strand at a time. It is how liberty is stolen from people: one tiny non-issue at a time.

This is why you can't smoke in a privately-owned bar or restaurant in most states: because some official thought you shouldn't be allowed to do it. Just. Because. *(oh, sure, they claim health issues, but that's a sham: nobody every got harmed by second-hand smoke in a bar or restaurant, although a lot of smoking Nazis got pissed off by it).

This is why, in most municipalities, there's a code enforcement office that requires you to face the "best" side of a fence away from your property should you install a fence around your property. Because, you know, you shouldn't get the benefit of the best side (if there is a best side, which there isn't always, but there is sometimes). Yeah: your government cares about your fence.

The list goes on. And on. And on. Taken individually, most of the rules don't affect most of the people on any given day, so most people don't object to them on a rule-by-rule basis. Taken collectively, the represent a massive power-grab by the government to restrict what you can and can't do and how/when/where you can do it and, to top it off, sometimes the government makes you buy a license to do it.

Labels: File Under Dept. of, Things That Drive Me Crazy

William Young 8:59 AM # 0 comments

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"The Only Way Out Is Through"