Why we fight

I forget when it was that I wrote I wanted to try and lighten this journal a bit and mix the content a little. But I have failed to do that as yet. Part of it has to do with how unstable my living situation has been. Part of it has to do with the reason I started this journal in the first place. Why the fukk should I slash a smile into my face when I have a real, palpable fear that people of power will declare my existence illegal?

Demonise. (Or how removing the humanity of your opponent negates your argument.)

Wherever you go, when the subject of conversation turns to hideous, mind-boggling acts of evil, you will often find people leaping to conclusions. Whether those conclusions are about the perpetrator or the circumstances, generally, those conclusions form part of a psychological defensive reaction.

Keeping the good to oneself. Sharing it with others. The conflict betwixt.

Readers of this publication and all of the things linked to or referenced therein will have noticed a bit of a lean towards unhappy, dark, even scary news. Or outright condemnations of some despicable behaviour, in some major cases. I am sure that it makes the world that I inhabit seem very scary, rotten, or outright evil. And on rare occasions, one will get the sort of person who does not know any better asking why no good news is forthcoming, or why references to good elements in the world the author inhabits are forthcoming.

How to make a good Blu-ray Disc

Introduction

A common saying amongst the individuals who review and evaluate any form of home video is that when all other factors are equal, the picture with the most active dots in it wins. Blu-ray Disc is the king of the home video castle in that sense. No prior medium has ever offered more than twenty percent of its active dot count.

Yet another post about why “person first” language is *bad*…

In my written work, I sometimes attempt to mimic in text my everyday patterns and quirks of speech. And by speech, I mean the speech to myself (thinking to myself) as well as exterior, to others. That part is because the two often converge, anyway. Such is the case when you almost never fail to mean what you are saying, even if the meaning you have in your consciousness and the meaning your audience thinks you are trying to impart are two different things.

A (lousy) recollection of The Stepford Wives, circa 2004

The years postdating 2003 have not been very kind to me. There are a number of reasons for this, but that is a matter for another time. The simple fact we are dealing with today is the overwhelming shittiness of a film called The Stepford Wives.

Television a more mature medium than cinema?

A few years ago now, I was told to go and buy the Blu-ray Disc boxed set of a little television show called True Blood. Normally, when others recommend a film, television series, or pretty much anything for that matter to me, I need to be convinced that there is something to warrant my attention. True Blood, as media exhibitions go, was actually a pretty easy sell when the person telling me about it said the magic words. Anna Paquin was in it. So a couple of days and a substantial number of dollars later, I was sitting in front of my display unit (a forty-two incher at the time) and watching a television show called True Blood.