Battlefield Muffins: The Continuing Saga

Ok, first off, I promise that I will reference less "Damn Egyptians" this time.  In not-3am retrospect, that sounded very international-incidenty, and, well, not that I think Egypt will do shit, but that I think there are some other countries which are far more fun to poke with the insult stick.  So, off we go then.

FUCK YOU CANADA!

LOOK AT THIS!
You know what this map says you are?
America's Big Damn (Free) Highway to Alaska.
That we don't even bother to use.
Enjoy that thought Canadian taxpayers, enjoy knowing that your
purpose in life is to pay for roads that shuttle bored Americans to Palin-Hell.

Ok, now you're probably wondering why I'm doing a lot of blaming Canada and not a lot of talking about Battlefield Earth.  Well, simply put, if I proceed without having a nationality to blame this movie on it will be like trying to understand Lindsay Lohan without Vodka; see here, Canda is the Vodka, and Battlefield Earth is Lindsay Lohan.  So, clearly, the first revelation of the day, that my genius logic has so kindly provided, is that we need more vodka for this particular Lindsay Lohan.

Although, really.... If B.E. were THIS Lindsay Lohan....
I wouldn't be doing a whole lot of complaining.
But Canada might still owe me Vodka.

Canada, I expect more vodka.  You bribe your Ruskie friends if you have to, but YOU OWE ME.

Yeah, it's because B.E. was THIS Lindsay Lohan.
And this.
This is something worth complaining about.
This is what makes god kill puppies.
Puppies.
And if you look at the picture, you'll see that she, clearly, has stolen my vodka.

So, now that I've established reasoning for both, a.) blaming Canada, and b.) needing more vodka, let us get onto the main attraction:

Now do a shot of that vodka and say it with me:
FUCK YOU CANADA!

Now, where did I leave off last time?  Did I mention the alien takeover?  That they supposedly wiped out all of humanity's military in 9 minutes?  No.  Good.  Cuz that makes no damn sense.  They can't even find fucking cars on fucking roads; and our government can't do anything in under a hour because that's how long it takes a fucking supercomputer to files all the damn paperwork just for wiping your ass after you take a shit.  So, if Logic were still with us, I'm sure he'd have had a stroke or some other horrible death at this point.  But yeah, 9 minutes, and the story revolves around cave men beating them.  This isn't David and Goliath, this is dust-bunny vs. Chuck Norris.

Although....

The aliens are... profit-aliens... and they are led by John Travolta.  So, I'll give 10:1 odds on the bunny.

What it lacks in physical strength and size
it makes up for in crazy.
And teeth.  Look at those fuckers.
Big. Damn. Teeth.
...just like Canadians...

Ok, next point, going back to that whole 'aliens-here-for-gold-and-other-metals' thing.  And this might be me picking too many nits, but, well... ok, I'll tell you this way: you remember the old James Bond movie Goldfinger?  Well, that movie revolved *spoiler alert* around a plot to rob Fort Knox.  Hmm.... Fort Knox... the place where the U.S.ofA. supposedly keeps ALL THE DAMN GOLD, now, there's no way in hell the aliens were dumb enough to have missed that...

It's not precisely.... subtle.
Or camouflaged.
Or hidden.
Or... able to not be noticed.

Oh, wait...

This, again.

Obese, Rastafarian John Travolta-- how did I forget about you, for your ineptitude knows no bounds, rather, I think your ineptitude might need a map of its own, hell, you might even be able to christen it as a sovereign nation.
You missed the big fuck off fort with all the damn gold.

I mean, bloody hell, an 8 year old could
find Ft. Knox with this map.

We even marked it on maps.  We have devices and signs designed to help you find it.  This was supposed to be an idiot proof system.  

But, well, it just goes to show that no matter how many millenia of evolutionary or technological advantage you might have over us mere humans, if you build an idiot proof system, then the universe will build a better idiot- I'm just surprised he's not Canadian.




And now, we come to my next point:

Yes.
My point is Mr. Sir BadassMothaFucker here.

And the fact that cavemen learned to fly this multi-million dollar piece of advanced military technology that takes years of training to fly, and that they accomplished this.... auspicious... feat by dicking around in a flight simulator for a few days.  No training.  No English language. No knowledge of flight.  No understanding the buttins or gauges.  Never even seen one in flight before.  And after a few days in a flight simulator, cavemen were competent military pilots.  Now you, like myself, might be wondering which ancient pagan god the Canadians were sacrificing their grandparents to the day that this trainwreck of an idea was summoned into existence from the abyss of conceptual hell.  But the answer is: lets never know.  How about we have this be one of those problems that our children can solve for us?  That we hope we never again have to face this behemoth in our lifetime?  That we leave our children an apocalyptic wasteland forsaken by logic as their inheritance?  Because, lets face it, neither you, not I, and a Winchester, and much as I might like it, I have no experience with slaying pagan gods; but really, I think this might be one that would even make the Winchesters say "Fuck this shit, we're going home."

And now, ladies and gentle-bastards, I bring you.... The Last Great Canadian Fuck-Up

And now, all you Canadians out there must explain to me how the profit-aliens existed on a world where radiation reacted with their atmosphere so that, um, the planet explodes.  I mean, you do know that, in space, there's radiation, right?  I mean, even bananas are radioactive.  Do they make the atmosphere ignite?  No.  Would that be awesome?  Yes.  But that's beside the point.  Well, not entirely, I think there should an entire branch of science devoted to atmosphere-igniting bananas.  Ok, maybe that was beside the point.  But it would still be pretty epic.  Back to the point.  This movie is based around a scenario that should have prevented the movie, and every Rastafarian profit-alien in its, very existence.  By this movie's own logic it shouldn't have happened.  But it did.  This movie has just become it's own self contained time warp.  Hm, maybe now John Travolta's a trans-dimensional being.... caught in a time warp... that sounds soooo familiar.... where have I heard that before...

ZORDON!!! 
Or, should I say.... Mr. Travolta.
Surely it's no coincidence that they're both transdimensional beings caught in time-warps.
...or who have things for teenages "with attitude", which I'm sure is code for something,
and the more I don't know what that something is, the better.

Muffins for SCIENCE

Yes, children, it's science time. FOX has been running a series called Fringe that sprang from the mind of the one, the only J.J. Abrams. It revolves around a newly formed division of the FBI known as Fringe Division. They deal with occurrences that press the boundaries of science as we know it.

Things start to get hairy when agent Olivia Dunham (played by actress Anna Torv) encounters a biological agent that is like nothing she's ever seen. Agent Phillip Broyles (portrayed by Lance Reddick) approaches her and invites her to join the brand-spankin' new Fringe Division, which is designed to deal with situations just like this one: things that conventional science can't quite explain; things that fall under the heading of "fringe science". They run into Peter Bishop (Josh Jackson) and coerce him into bringing his one-time brilliant, now locked up in the loony bin father Walter Bishop (John Noble). Rounding out the team is agent Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole) who functions as Walter's right hand woman, doing everything from assisting him in autopsies to tracking down his favorite candies. Together, these five track down and solve events that defy all things that science has told us are fact.

Fringe, at its core, is a science fiction thriller, and a bloody good one at that. The atmosphere is constantly tense with anticipation. However, the writers know how to get a good laugh and not at the expense of the flow of each episode. Fringe manages to incorporate everything necessary to keep the viewers interested AND it crafts characters that have enough flaws to make them feel real and enough hurt and joy to make the viewer sympathize and even empathize with them.

Because this is most obviously the picture of mental health...

In true Abrams style, you spend a lot of time wondering how things will tie together, but fear not! Though it takes some time, things are explained one way or another. The story is fantastic, the writing is amazing, and the directing fits perfectly with the style of the series. Make sure you check out Fringe every Friday night at 9 PM, EST.

Battlefield Muffins

To Preface: I blame those damn Egyptians.

Also, this is what a google search for "Egyptians" returns.
So, congratulations Egyptians, you are officially the first culture
 on Earth to DOODLE yourselves into fucking anonymity and irrelivancy.  

Now, if you happen to be Egyptian, you may have some.... thoughts... going through your mind now, thoughts which you don't understand and aren't comfortable with expressing; no worries mate, I'm not going to try to help you understand your kinky, batshit insane thoughts about catholic school girls and grand pianos.  BUT.  What I will do is explain to you why you should formally apologize before the U.N. and how that connects to those other thoughts which can likely be summarized as "What the FUCK you dumb American internet USB powered CUNT!".

First off, what you did:
Battlefield Earth. (a saga of the year 3000)

And no, I don't really give a fuck that there's no evidence, or even anything that resembles something evidence might have eaten for breakfast, linking you or your peoples to this movie.  Simply put, this movie needs someone to blame, this movie is like the Holocaust in that it needs its Nazi's to make a damn bit of sense, and unfortunately (if you're Egyptian at least) I choose Egyptians to be the Nazi's of 3000 A.D.
Ok, now if you're reading this and have no idea why I think someone needs to be blamed for this movie and made to apologize to the U.N. then you have clearly never seen the movie.  And for that.... all I have to say is... that.... YOU ARE REAL DAMN LUCKY.
I mean, really, WHAT THE FUCK JOHN TRAVOLTA?!?!?!

I don't even know where to start here....
I mean... FUCK.
THEY PLUGGED HIS NOSE INTO HIS FUCKING BRAIN.
What the hell did they expect to happen?

CARS!!  You know, THESE THINGS
That are made of METAL.
The aliens missed them.
How?
Because they're motherfucking idiots.

AND THESE!
They missed these...
Didn't notice that they're
made of metal.
Ya know, the whole
damn reason they
came to our planet?

What I COULD do is tear the movie apart based on its technical.... missteps, such as how half the damn movie looks like it was filmed though blue kool-aid (Because of Egyptians).  But instead what I WILL do is examine the movie based on its, um, "logic".  What the "aliens" came to Earth, in the year Three Fucking Thousand, for is our metals, gold specifically, but they want metal.  And, while goodle image search is failing me, because, well, why would people waste their time loading images from this movie onto the internet, I assure you, there are many-much-mooses worth of scenes in the movie where they're walking through a destroyed city... past cars... cars made of METAL... and buildings... also made largely of METAL.  Also, it might help the alien's cause if they didn't make their fucking post-it notes out of metal.   But hey, they're being lead by giant, overweight, Rastafarian John Travolta with his nose connected to his frontal cortex.  So, really, lets not set our expectations too high here, so we'll pretend we're dealing with Penn-Dot, or Egyptians.  

But... lets not get ahead of ourselves here.  Lets consider the the part where the aliens entire civilization revolves around profits, and that is what drove them here, profits.  Now I realize that money does in fact make the world go round; how else would curve-linear rotation pay for it's equation space in textbooks?  But really?  PROFITS.  They're aliens that wiped out our civilization for... their economy?  DO I, AS THE VIEWER, GIVE HALF OF A RAT'S FLYING FUCK ABOUT ALIEN ECONOMICS?!?!?!?

The answer is no, no fucks are given on that subject.

And yes, the proper response to this pants-on-head retarded premise is to blame the Egyptians.

So now we have aliens that we, as viewers, give 0.00 fucks about, in fact, after the whole cars thing, they might owe us fucks, but I don't work on a street-corner so I don't really know how that works or what the alien:human fuck exchange rate is.  But, from a movie standpoint, never-mind logic at this point, logic became so depressed from being abused and neglected during the making of this movie that he went and crawled inside a breadmaker with a poptart for his final meal (no, it doesn't make sense to me either, but well, logic killed itself, how the fuck do you expect that to make any damn sense?  Oh, wait, you did?  Then you should blame the damn Egyptians).  Ok, back to what I was saying before that bit about logic's depression; profit driven aliens might be the lamest idea ever used to forward a sci-fi action movie since... well... since the idea of John Travolta staring in a sci-fi action movie (again, I blame the fact that this happened on the Egyptians).  And this might not have been such a huge misstep if not for the fact that this movie came out after INDEPENDENCE DAY: the single most patriotic movie about kicking alien ass ever made by mankind.  And it is because of this that B.E. has no excuse, it knew it needed evil aliens, and not just kick-a-puppy evil, I mean a cross of Freddy Kruger and Megatron whose very hair is filamentous hatred; but what it gave us was profit aliens, aliens that are about as evil as Martha-Fucking-Stewart.  I don't think I can even blame the Egyptians on this one.      

This, this is not evil.
This will fuck you up, but just because it can make you need
more years of therapy than reading Twilight doesn't
necessarily make it evil.
Ok, I might have put myself in a difficult position with that statement.
So.......
HERE!

THIS.
THIS HERE.
The second Google Image search result for "evil"
THIS would have been a better villain than profit-aliens.
I mean, really, space-clowns from Soviet Russia
I just scared you shitless making you think about having those as villains.
Because in Soviet Russia clowns space you. 

Ok, I really don't want to end this post with clowns, or space clowns, or even a non-sense soviet russia joke, because, well, fuck clowns, I blame the Serbians for clowns (and no, not Egyptians, they don't have anywhere near the level of batshit insane murder rage to be responsible for clowns).  So HERE:

This is what victory should look like.  A Jew and a black man nuking an entire
alien civilization into component atoms because they fucked with America's
4th of July cookouts.
Oh, and because the aliens took all our rum.  Well, maybe they didn't take it, but they
did burn a lot of it, and that does mean we don't have it anymore.
And well, lets face it, it doesn't matter if you DID come from a few trillion light years away
and have several dozen Cher-lifetimes worth of technology on us and that you DID also manage
to wipe out most of our military while we were having our morning coffee:
If you fuck with Americans burgers and rum, we will fuck you up.
With Mac OS6, nukes, and drunken epiphanys if necessary.
Otherwise, baseball bats and pipe wrenches work fine.
 

League of Muffins

Ok, first off, it doesn't really matter what your opinions, views, or legal codes say about digital property rights; what matters is that the entertainment industry today is vastly different than it was fifteen, ten, or even five years ago.  And this, is one sad fact that most, nay, nearly all, major digital entertainment companies seems to be putting every effort into ignoring.  However, not all companies have stuck their heads in the sand in the hopes that the existence of a post-scarcity entertainment industry will go unnoticed by the masses.  And that brings us to Riot Games.  The fine boys and girls who have enriched our lives by bringing us League of Legends.  

Now, onto what League of Legends is, and why you should care.  

Well, first off, this is what the gameplay kinda looks like.

League of Legends is, technically, a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)- a genre both created, defined and popularized by the Warcraft III mod that you're probably sick of hearing about by now: DotA.  What I might more correctly classify LoL as is this: a stay at home sport.  Why?  Because it plays more like an actual sports match than a typical videogame.  Now, I've also slightly sabotaged my definition by saying "typical videogame" because the obvious response is to simply say that the "stay at home sport" thing is complete bollocks and that it is, simply, an a-typical videogame.  Well, you could reason that way if you want, but honestly, both the gameplay and the meta-game of LoL more closely resemble a hockey season than any other online/multiplayer videogame that exists, except StarCraft but that only counts if you're Korean (ok, and all those other games that are "just-like" LoL, but for sake of argument and the earlier reference to a post-scarcity entertainment industry, I'll ignore them because LoL works better as an example).  

Yes, that is a real LoL champion
and No, sadly it's not actually Articuno.
But hey, that's never stopped me from yelling at it to use ICE BEAM attack in a fight
and it shouldn't stop you either.

As far as gameplay is concerned, league of legends controls similarly to your typical RTS game, except for the part where you control a single unit.  The difference between LoL and an RTS is how you use that unit.  In LoL your unit is a "Hero", or "Champion", or "More-Important-Than-That-Other-Guy" type and you must level them up, make them more powerful, buy items for them, and use their levels, powers and items to pwn the "Heroes" on the other team.   Sounds simple, yes?  Well, if you think so, go play a game (I mean, for fucks's sake, it's free, you should actually go play a game).  Ok, now that you've been raped, called a noob, blamed for single-handedly ruining your entire team's game and for creepily inappropriate relations with the mothers of people you don't know, you'll see how inapplicable "simple" is for describing this game.  What really defines LoL is that every champion plays differently, both in subtle ways and in drastic you-feel-like-you-don't-know-how-to-play-the-game-anymore ways.  And that every champion can be played in more than one "right" way, even if you're called a noob for trying the other ways.  Now this brings about the second level of complexity in LoL's gameplay: because every champion plays differently, every champion has a different role in the TEAM.  Oh, yes, now you're starting to see.  Every player has a different role in furthering the TEAM's goals, and not the INDIVIDUAL's goals.  MUCH LIKE A REAL SPORT.  And, might I add, exactly unlike games such as, oh, I don't know, *cough*halo*cough*.  So now, you not only have multiple champions and playstyles to master, but different roles that you may end up needing to fill.  Oh hey, it's like it's a game that you need to legitimately master to be good at and not some instant-gratification headshot based shooter.  Now isn't that a novelty?

But, gameplay aside, LoL is also doing something else that the 'mainstream' game industry really, really, needs to adopt, particularly on the console level.  

And that thing is FREE.

But yes, you can play as the creepy little girl
that summons a giant ass demon-teddy-bear from hell to tear her enemy's faces off.
So, Articuno: No, Demon-Teddy: Yes
And that was your daily lesson in compromise.

Now, before you start yelling about how online piracy is/is-not stealing or is/is-not related to the flying spaghetti monster, lets get back to that idea of a post-scarcity entertainment industry i mentioned a while ago.  A simple way of explaining what that means is that, if I were to, hypotherically give you a laptop, theoretically unlimited storage and massive internet bandwidth and challenge you to download all of "X" in a year, do you know how much "X" you could download?  If you answered with anything other than ALL OF THE "X".  You're wrong.  And the reason is simple, all you need for getting all of the "whatever the hell you were after that I probably don't want to know about considering that this IS the internet after all" is effectively copy/paste.  Another example is this.  I have music on my computer, imagine that.  Now, as far as digital property rights go, I think I'm technically only supposed to have one copy of an album on here at a time that I legitimately bought (although, even that's debateable as the IRAA has sued people over ripping music off of CD's they've bought onto their computers for their personal use, but, legal insanity and corporate mind-fuxored ass-clowns aside), BUT, what happens if I do copy/paste of the album?  I can haz over 9,000 albums?  YIS!  I CANZ!  But... what did that really gain me?  Jack-shit.  That's what..  Why?  because ANYONE can do that.  Would it make sense?  No.  But point is, digital media costs effectively nothing to reproduce.  There's no manufacturing costs, no personnel involved, just copy/paste.  And this is what's killing the mainstream digital entertainment industry: people have realized this.  And more importantly, people have realized that paying a massive one-time lump sum of money for something that costs effectively nothing to make and can be acquired for free, is kinda stupid.  UNLESS, that money is buying you, not the costs-less-than-a-cheap-whore to produce ones and zeroes, BUT A SERVICE to accompany those ones and zeroes.  Like, lets just go back a few paragraphs: LoL.  It costs nothing to play, you could play for all eternity and give Riot Games precisely $0.00.  BUT, they also provide a service: the matchmaking.  And, they offer, completely unnecessary stuff for minimal fees, but, it's stuff that appeals to people on a personal level (custom skins for champions, quicker unlocks on stuff, etc.  Nothing necessary for playing the game, but stuff that's either personally appealing or simply convenient), and it's stuff that requires their service to use, therefore, they must pay the fee.  

AND THAT IS THE DIRECTION THE GAMING INDUSTRY NEEDS TO GO.

Because they can only sell us on one-time-massive-fee games that they don't even let us resell for so long when the need to buy the disc is rapidly disappearing and comparable gameplay value can be had for FREE.  Now, this hasn't even touched on the need to buy entire games (i.e. why should I buy ALL of Gears of War 3 if all I want is the campaign and not multiplayer) or (is piracy REALLY stealing-- but please, for the love of all things not-Canadia, DO NOT FUCKING START THAT SHIT HERE)

And on that note, I'm done ranting for the day, and my recommendations are thus:

Play League of Legends, at least give it a shot.

And be mindful of when you're paying money for nothing and doing so for bullshit reasons.  

Oh, and one more thing:

Why?  Because Pikachu does not approve of you and whatever stupid opinion you
were about to post into the comments section.
And no, sadly there isn't a Pikachu champion in Lol....
....YET.

Muffins You Should Watch: Supernatural

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Pawn is BACK. After a summer with little time or access to the interwebs, I have, in fact, returned to educate you on the finer things in the entertainment world! I know you're all used to hearing me rant and rave about music, but I'd like to take this opportunity to broaden your television horizons with one of my favorite shows: Supernatural.

Supernatural, which currently airs on The CW Fridays at 9:00 PM, EST, follows two brothers who hunt the strange and unexplained. They've taken on vampires, werewolves, wendigos, ghosts, demons, and dozens of other ghoulies. Sam and Dean Winchester (yes, they are named after a gun, which makes this show all that much better), cruise around America in their 1967 Impala - yes, this is a badass car - hunting all things supernatural. See how clever they were in naming the series?

Look at that car. LOOK AT IT!

Sam and Dean (played by Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, respectively), with the help of their long time friend and fellow hunter Bobby Singer (played by Jim Beaver), spend their days impersonating various officers of the law, lawyers, and even priests from time to time in their search for the monsters from our nightmares. They lose sleep, face death, and listen to classic rock all to protect us, the unsuspecting citizens of the world from all of these baddies.

From a production standpoint, Supernatural has all the bells and whistles. The directing is top notch, especially for a TV series, but the writing is what really sells this show for me. It utilizes a dark sense of humor; with its consistently macabre subject matter, they find a way to see the light and even the irony of almost any situation. In addition to the stellar writing, Jared and Jensen act like genuine brothers - the constant bickering, giving each other a hard time, but all the while knowing that they always have each other's backs. Their performance lends a level of believability that is generally missing from television shows today, especially ones with such an outlandish premise like Supernatural.

Bobby, Dean, and Sam. Would you want to mess with them?
No, because they KILL MONSTERS FOR FUN.

The other element of this series that really makes it stand out is the amount of research that was put into it. Whether the Winchesters are facing demons, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, or any number of creatures from myth and legend, the lore is always SPOT ON. The producers, directors, and writers made sure to pull from the actual myths for subject matter. In every episode, they go extremely in depth with the background for every monster they face. That's right, kids, this show is entertaining AND educational!

With Supernatural entering their seventh season this fall, you definitely want to go back and start this show from the very beginning to get all of the background on the Winchester brothers. If you love witty writing, driving stories, and the myths and legends of nightmare, be sure to check out The CW's Supernatural.

Muffiny Haiku Muffins from the Great Land of America Muffins

So, I said we'd be back, and we are.
Also, this is a new post, a new post occuring less than one month after the last one.
You didn't expect that now, did you?
Which leaves it at me:1 and your expectations of me:0
And this also leaves this post resembling a really bad haiku.
Like, a haiku that a dyslexic amnesiac would write.

I think this haiku is about a loan shark
and a fishing expedition gone horribly wrong.
but no one can be sure.

However, just to ensure that I remain the WINNING party, or BI-WINNING, should you prefer.
Let me set some things straight about what you can expect about the update schedule here:
Look at your calender.
Notice all those nice, even, measured intervals.
Those intervals have trained you.
Trained you to expect things at those intervals, in sequence, in a predictable manner even.
Well.
Fuck.
All.
That.
Bullshit.
We have no schedule.
Why?
Because we're trying to help you.
We're trying to help you overcome all that mundane bullshit.
All those safe expectations about what to expect and when.
We're breaking you of habits
Habits you didn't know you had.
Habits that are eating your life away, forcing you to live like an automated drone.
Instead of a human being: spontaneous, free, and full of good ol'
AMERICAN FREEDOM.
CUZ THIS IS FUCKING AMERICA.
FUCK YEAH.

Yeah!  This place.
Well, most of this place.
But, um, mostly just the middle-ish bit.
well kinda lower-middle-ish
and the one bit in the top leftish corner area.
But the rest of those places: fuck 'em.
I didn't even know it was legal to put Russia
 on the same map as America.

Or,
at least that's what I tell myself.
But really,
Lets see you be creative
ON A SCHEDULE.
You'll fail.
And when you do,
you should come back here,
and maybe appreciate this fucking faux-haiku.
And Power-Rangers.
They're definitely underrated.
Respect the Zords.

Or they'll find you.