Animal Loving Hippies aka Peta

Some people might know my eternal hatred for PETA (People for Exaggeratedly Elite Treatment of Animals), and the way they attempt to disrupt the lives of normal people. I am sure everyone to some degree dislikes Peta's actions at some point or another. Even I generally wont be pissed if they keep their hippie protests and black paint splashing limited to Japanese Whalers or stuff (do they actually go there? because that sounds like something that actually matters). What really makes me go "palm in face" is when they show up in places on the interweb like so: (see the comments)
http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/sled-dogs-hoffmann/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ng%2Fphotography%2Fphoto-of-the-day+%28National+Geographic+Photo+of+the+Day%29&utm_content=Google+International

I respect that you have your damn opinions (who doesnt?), but dont spoil people's moods! I was trying to enjoy the furry and happy dog's picture and this damn hippie comes in and spams me with his/her website. Nevertheless they are probably just raising awareness for their stupid cause. What I hate is they just assume that the only way animals are ever happy is if they are free in the wild and live long lives! Wrong wrong very wrong! In the case of dogs, they have practically co-evolved with humans. In fact, humans have affected their evolution so much that they probably exist as they do today, due to humans. All of us know this right? In the wild they dont live a quarter of what they do in captivity. Besides their death is often brutal and certainly more painful than what humans might cause.

Speaking of humans killing animals, I can understand when Peta protests fur. With all the artificial materials available today, who needs actual fur? And I am all for the actresses/models going nude for that (Yes Eva Mendes, I would also prefer it if you went naked rather than wearing fur, or cotton, or nylon...). But I dont understand when they promote being vegetarian or worse, vegan. Being from India, I know well how vegetarianism is good and economical. But the concept of 'vegan' is the most fake and ostentatious thing I have ever heard! What I find even more annoying is that some people think Indians are vegan! Do they have any idea how many kinds of milk products and foods we have in India? I love The Simpsons and I can accept some bloopers they have while portraying Apu (eg. he has a masters degree in something and he is working at a convenience store?). But when they portrayed him as vegan, I was like "That is so wrong! You dont know anything about Indians do you?".

But my opinions aside, biologically speaking, humans are more suitable to be meat eaters. Early humans were scavengers but once the stone tool industries took off and man developed advanced weapons, he was the apex predator. If we primarily ate plants, our dental anatomy would be much different. Rearing animals for food started when man was still living in caves. This just shows that how illogical the concept of veganism is. Your going against evolution (thats my way of saying 'your going against god').

All said and done, I bear no ill will against vegetarians (maybe a little ill will against vegans because I find that so pretentious and condescending). I just prefer that they eat or not eat whatever they feel ok or not ok. Just dont impose your views on us who think some animals are quite tasty (mmm..steak...*slurp*). If they think that all people who eat meat and wear leather are uneducated rednecks (and thats what they seem to think); bitch please!

02022012

I found this on my computer while looking for things to delete (because my computer is full of crap movies and games). I wrote it sometime back as sort of a diary entry (as you can see almost a couple months back). Anyways enjoy!

February 2^nd 2012

Real busy day today but sometime in the middle of the day I felt I should get back to writing today. Cant explain why today of all days. But I have never been one for dates and schedules as much as I wish and try I could change that facet of my personality. Don’t get me wrong I can quite humbly say that I am a unique person in my own way and have several things much better in some ways. I used to have great imagination too but TV, video games and to a lesser extent 'weekend fun times' killed it. But I still maintain that I have a good ability to express my thoughts through writing despite my poor reading record. I also pride myself in being pedantic and anal about spelling grammar and pronunciation (I had just misspelled pronunciation but thanks to auto-correct that wont be thrown in my face). 


I always find that writers take too long to get to the point in novels (kind of like most Pink Floyd songs); read short stories then you’ll say. Yeah I’ll get to that…some time. Guess that’s my generation for you. TV shows and movies are just so easy to watch and now they are free too unlike previously; thanks to the internet and piratebay.org. Who’s gonna take the effort to read. If you do decide to go ‘non-visual’ (aww! Now we need to use our imagination instead of seeing pictures!) then you got your audiobooks read out to you! What do you expect? People aren’t going to read anymore now are they? My most extensive reading probably goes as far as reading, or rather scanning, Wikipedia entries, mostly about cars.

            Anyways to get to the point (see if I was a novelist I could have, and would have been expected to, ramble on for pages about irrelevant crap about my character’s or my own life), I planned to get up today at 4am to study for my archeology exam. I had slept at about 10pm so it seemed like a possible feat. Obviously I arose yawning at 7.30am having shut of the alarm like 3 times in the past couple hours. I did go over a little material but that didn’t help me much. My 9am class is a bitch. It’s like mini stats and introduction to computer programs like excel and something called maple. I am already taking the ‘big boy’ stats 465 so this just seems derivative for the most part. I should clarify that you shouldn’t ask me about real complicated stats because this is ASM 465. So, its anthropologically relevant stats. Then was my osteology class. That class is interesting Dr. Schwartz is interesting and funny and not to mention I really like bones (yes the TV show and the real deal both). The TA treats me like a ‘special’ kid though; you know like learning disability kind of special. The way everyone treats one of my friends who has the perpetual expression of a lost child.

            I generally head home for lunch and a Simpsons rerun after my osteo class but I didn’t do that today. I studied up a bit for my Archeology exam. Then was my stats class where I sat next to this girl I see in pretty much all my classes (just like several other people from my osteo class). I think it’s a limited choice for most people in anthropology. They just have these limited number of classes to choose from each semester. Anyways so I was talking to this girl about the quiz in stats class; because you know I had some questions about the quiz and not because she is cute and I’m desperate. But then I asked her, “ Aren’t you in my Osteology class and lab too?” “Yeah, I remember you from the lab. You always come in late.” (In my defence I used to go like 3 or minutes late just as people were settling down in their seats)Ah, dammit! The Lazy Late Larry image. I have struggled to clean that off my record all my life. From teachers in school and tuition class (those are very popular and cheap in India because people don’t really ‘learn’ in school. Everything is in tuition classes.) and among friends. I have this ability to be late even if I am ready to leave well before the event starts. I just make it happen. I don’t know how and why. I tried saving my image by telling her how I wish people wouldn’t remember me that way but then again if I was a speaker I wouldn’t be writing this shit would I? I would speak it in a vlog in a deep, pleasing, girl-charming British accent. I know already that my tomb stone will bear the words,” Son, Brother…Friend and known to all as ‘always late to class’”. Guess that was the moment I decided that I want to write again and try to get it out there that I am actually a person with things to say and opinions that have been given much thought. That plus the fact that writing is one thing I can actually do naturally well. Maybe not well but decent. At least better than some famous ‘writers’ out there.

Knights and Damsels

Did you read in the news recently about the man behind Kony 2012 losing his mind? Apparently he was running around the streets naked after suffering 'a mental breakdown'. Some comedian Patton Oswalt (no idea who he is, but his comment was hilarious) reportedly said, “In Jason Russell's defense, who DOESN'T celebrate a video going viral by jerking off in public?”.
Anyways just bringing that up for lulz. But this 'jerking off in public' incident reminds me of another incident that took place at my apartment complex a couple years ago. It was the weekend, and as usual a bunch of us were at my apartment for dinner and drinks. I was near the entrance of my apartment, when I heard a high pitched squeal. For a moment, I thought one of the guys had had a strong drink and were letting out their exhilaration. I was about to tell them to knock it off because it was nerve wrenching when someone thudded on the door like they had wolves behind them. I calmly opened the door to see a girl scared out of her wits rattling on about a guy in her patio. Generally this would be a scene from a movie (horror or comedy or 'something else') when a beautiful young girl arrives at the door of an apartment where there's a bunch of (drunk) guys ready to rescue the damsel in distress. Although the knight to damsel ratio was a little iffy here, it looked pretty good in the slightly inebriated minds of the 'knights'.
So we all got up and went to her apartment while she called 911. The place looked pretty uneventful. Her story was that apparently some man with dark skin (read black guy) was in her patio and 'touching himself' while looking at her. As usual my friend Prad came up with the most inappropriate things to say like, "... shouldn't you take that as a compliment?" Nevertheless all of us bravely stood around to prevent any further incidents (abiding strictly to the Code of Chivalry). Meanwhile another friend of mine, who is black, arrived at a very wrong time which is about the same time one would think it would take someone to run from someone's patio and come round the front. Obviously this led to more inappropriate jokes like Prad asking him if he was in anyone's patio recently.
We still held our ground waiting to provide any support needed to the damsel. This resolute stand was abruptly ended when the damsel's boyfriend arrived and the knights slinked away back to their apartment.
Moral of the story: Damsels in distress and knights fighting dragons are not only an exaggerated analogy which only exists in fairy tales, but if you think its happening to you, don't get your hopes up about impressing the damsel, because the unicorn called the boyfriend is always waiting to come in and you will be left completely in the sidelines with not even so much as a thank you or a smile of acknowledgment. So don't waste your time; just amuse yourself by making jokes like Prad does.

Bugged!

Yay! Spring break begins!
I had all my exams this week and as much as I would like to make up for a few hours of lost sleep, I am currently afraid of sitting or sleeping on any bed, futon or chair in my house except for my desk chair. Yes, we got a bad bedbug infestation sometime early last week. Its horrible and every time we get bedbugs I think of novel ways I could circumvent it from happening again. Last time I threw away my mattress, which I loved so much, and vowed never to get a mattress (also partly because I realized that most new mattresses cost an arm and a leg for a student's budget). So feeling quite happy about sleeping on a couple sleeping bags and a comforter I thought I wouldn't encounter the vile creatures ever again. Now that it has happened again I am contemplating buying a hammock and suspending it inside the house (I don't know how). There's some other plans like putting planks across two chairs. Of course these hare brained schemes are my version of counting sheep.
Of course I searched the internets. I found a number of sites claiming 'miracle', cost-effective methods to 'permanently get rid of bed bugs, fleas, etc.'. However these cost effective methods always involve buying an e-book or subscription or one lady who was an 'eco-mentalist' (as Jeremy Clarkson calls them) and hence wanted to use only 'natural' methods to eliminate the pests. Its exasperating. The only consolation I got from my search was that "remember, the bed bug infestation isn't your fault. You just picked them up from somewhere...blah blah blah".
Alright enough about bed bugses, Now that Spring break is here I am planning a road trip. Feels like ages since I've hit the Interstate and driven for hours in my car. Last couple road trips I made, one to Las Vegas and one to San Diego were in someone else's car with that particular someone else driving most of the time. So I am really excited about this one. I really do love driving in the US, more particularly Arizona. As much as I would love to ride a motorrad down the Pacific Coast Highway in LA, the rest of LA is pretty crowded compared to AZ. I hate the roads in Las Vegas. Not because of the crowd (I mean if you expect Vegas to have open roads, you must be living in the Matrix or rather the matrix simulator that Morpheus uses at the start to train Neo). Anyways the reason I hate Vegas roads are because they dont have lines marking lanes. They have stupid bumpy plastic reflectors. The kind they put ON painted lines to reflect light but in Vegas there's no lines. I don't understand their logic. It the the city of freakin' lights (well officially, its supposed to be Paris or something but you get my point)! You think that tiny bump is gonna be visible when you have a billion blinking lights? I always end up driving between lanes or almost going on the wrong side.
Arizona has beautiful open roads and except for the occasional old white guy trying to roll his SUV on you (long story) its generally a pleasure to drive here.
This post is a little stale because it was stuck in "development hell" for a few days. I didnt feel it was ready to be published, but what the hell I am putting it out there. I'll put up another 'fresher' post soon enough.
The_Radioactive

Criticism of Criticism Part 1

I got the idea for this post from my own decision to not do reviews again. I wont delete that Big Bang Theory review but looking back I didnt really enjoy writing that. Plus when there's so many subjects that I can insult, I really shouldn't insult my blog by discussing TV episodes on it of all things. Also, criticism might not be my thing. And why that might be, is what gave me the idea for this post. Hence the name.

Since I have a bunch of exams this week I will drag this post onto a second part where I will write some after thoughts that I might have on the subject.

Anyways, so criticism probably started off as a well meaning thing and constructive thing. I am going to go off on a slight tangent here to create some strained humor. Maybe early hominids had critics for the stone tools they made. I have an archaeology exam tomorrow; for that our Professor/ TA put up a review sheet on which they have a couple 'stone tool industries' which my TA said was simply different styles of making tools. So imagine stone tool critics going around different villages giving out grades to different tool makers that will be published in the "Rock and Antler" magazine. Along with that some interesting articles like, "Retouch techniques: Keep your tools sharp for when that saber-toothed tiger comes knocking" and "Microliths: Multi purpose mini tools the new buzz word in the cave?"

Anyways to circle back to the topic of the post, most criticism might be still constructive. But some like movie criticism or music criticism (eg. what Grammy judges think they do) is just so relative. For example, I am someone who goes to the movies to see things blow up and bad guys being shot in slow motion. I dont care if Roger Ebert gave some new Vin Diesel movie zero stars, if there's explosions and jaw breaking punches in it, I go see it. And again I dont go to the movies to feel sad, I go to be entertained and see something which doesnt happen in front of me everyday. I mean come on, everyone above 16 feels he or she has been in love and then gotten his or her heart broken and then "they lived one day at a time while they came to terms with the tragedy". There's been a billion movies and songs about it and yeah I weep for you because you live with the illusion that your life is so dramatic. If I see that in the movies too, I'll choke fatally on my popcorn. So my point is what is the basis for the judgement and criticism? Fortunately there's more reviews for a movie than the number of cast and crew for the movie itself, so I generally get a gist of whether or not a movie should be to my liking.

So to quote from one of my favorite animated movies which, ironically, isnt an action movie, "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."

About concerts, electronic music and other strong opinions...

First off thanks to my friend Akshat for helping me get the idea for today's post from his Facetube status. The status message was about the cost of going to a David Guetta... (I am hoping I spelled that right and I don't care enough to look it up, which would take about as much time as its taking me to type all this and render the question moot). Anyways the cost of going to a DJ's concert was the topic of status. I agree with him that 2000 Rs. is a large amount for watching a guy stand at what is basically a fancy computer and program thumping repetitive sounds out of it. And by all means if you enjoy trance or house or whatever it is that he makes, go for it. I just feel that the amount of fame these guys get, be it deadmau5 or armin van buren or avici (?) or whoever will be tomorrow's 'happening' artist (do artists happen? or are they just in?), is unfair.

I consider myself a pretty old school guy. I enjoy music that mostly people several times my age and with balding hair and thin white ponytails enjoy. But besides some of the music I am in no way a hippie. I dont care about buying more expensive fruits because they were grown in pig poop instead of chemical fertilizers, or about driving hybrids because they 'save the earth'. Face it, they dont. They just give you a better gas economy because they have a ton of Chinese batteries in them which when disposed off damage your beloved earth way more than my 15 year old Honda ever will.

But anyways today's topic is not about why I hate the Prius, and hippies, and conservative Republicans and many other things. No, thats for another time. Today's topic is about why people who program repetitive bass sounds are so much more famous than people who actually have the skill to make beautiful sounds from strings, percussion membranes and  their own voices. I get it that people dont want to understand too much about music, they just want a steady bass drone to ring in the background while they go about their day and then later lose their senses to ethanol while gyrating against someone of the opposite sex (or same sex; hey I mean whatever makes you happy, right?). Personally, I feel that when skill, poetry and hard work is put into music, it gives it a deeper meaning. Songs about things other than teen 'love' and women's sexual parts require so much more work. Writing lyrics with more than a couple syllables is even harder. So why dont the majority of people enjoy that?

I think thats because most people have a different place for music in their minds. They dont want to search something that is not featured on Vevo or iTunes. They can just listen to something that the major recording corporations have recommended because it is so much more accessible. Plus old music is from the past; who wants to listen to something which is original and was a great experiment in sound fusion? Remember the Die Hard 4.0 scene when Justin Long questions Bruce Willis why old songs are called 'classic' rock? Thats because those people made music with a lot of thought and creativity (also a variety of psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs but that doesnt help my argument much).
You can justify modern pop music as much as you want, but it doesnt overcome the fact that its often just so shallow and two-dimensional.

TBBT review

This is a short review for yesterday's episode of The Big Bang Theory. I will post a review of the new episode  of The Finder later in the evening, although I bet very few people watch that show and I dont think too many have liked it. But I like it a lot and hence the review is aimed at trying to get you to watch the series :D

Anyways, so first off I am going to say that recently the quality of the episodes has been dropping. Every character is slowly changing into a normal person from the previous quirky personalities that made the show so unique and probably caused so many people to relate to it. That being said yesterdays episode was a great improvement and I thought it was pretty brilliant. OK from this point on there may be spoilers, so SPOILER ALERT if you haven't watched it yet. Instead you can skip to the next paragraph where I actually review the general status of the series.

The guys decide to play the Star Wars online game (I am assuming its an MMORPG like Warcraft but much less popular) for 48 hours continuously over the weekend. When they reveal the plan to Sheldon he is of course extremely excited forgetting that he promised Amy to go with her to some old woman's (her great aunt or someone) 93rd birthday party. When Amy asks him that he should honor his word and the 'Relationship Agreement' he tries to brush it off and indirectly says that the agreement is basically to let him have his way. One of the really recurring funny jokes was the whip sound app that Howard uses when Sheldon has to listen to Amy and decides to go with her to the birthday. Of course finally he doesnt go with her and ends up playing with the guys. Each of the three informs their respective partners about the plan leading to some funny situations. Bernadette asks Howard if she can play with them and obviously he accepts much to the disappointment of everyone else, which results in Sheldon using the whip sound app and laughing at Howard in his classic way. Anyways so it all works out, Amy gets upset and tries to 'make a scene' but instead Raj makes one when the three girls refuse to leave the boy's alone.

As I said before all the guys have become almost normal now. Sheldon's quirks and characteristic "Asperger Syndrome" behavior continues to be funny. This episode I actually liked the three girls. I had started to hate Penny around the end of the 2nd season and in the 4th season the hatred became even stronger; I hate it when female leads are made promiscuous. I feel it kills the attraction the audience might feel towards the character for being you know 'hard to get'. I mean Penny was hard to get for Leonard but it felt like she went out with random men to just to create humor for the show by making Leonard sad. And it ended up making the character a slut in my opinion. Anyways that's just me. I think I like Bernadette way better than the other two. In this episode she's even cuter.

I also take offense to how the shows producers keep making Raj more and more feminine. I feel like Indians in the US already have several stereotypes to fight and if one of the major Indian characters on American television is so freaking gay; well that's just unfair man! Although there are times when he suddenly becomes normal. But in the majority of episodes, including this one, he is just so gay. I dont understand the purpose. To quote Leonard,"...pick up a Y chromosome while you were there? You might be short one."

Anyways in conclusion, this episode was great and with the current state of the series maybe they should make more like this one.

Bad Jokes and other stories...

After having received some encouraging feedback from yesterday, I have decided to keep posting regularly for at least the immediate future (Yay! like anyone cares!). But anyways I am doing this more for myself. Plus since when with friends its always been hard for me to get too many words into the conversation, this way I can at least get it out there somewhere for whoever wishes to read.

There are several topics I want to talk about but I am going to procrastinate on that for a bit, since I am really tired today. But for now let me put a small list of things to I wish to write about:
Soap Operas
Reality Shows
Either or both of the above
In the same vein, WTF is a socialite exactly? I mean I know what the word means but its like documenting the life of a single sloth because it calls itself an 'arboreal external surface maintenance manager'! Its a sloth...just doing what it enjoys most; no one cares. What do they do for a living and why do people want to know about them so much? Frankly I would rather watch a Nat Geo special about sloths.
Uh...let me stop here. This is for another time when I have more sarcastic microliths at my ready disposal. To explain why this isnt a good time to go into a rant I'll tell you that I spent about 30 minutes thinking about and improving that sloth analogy and its not even that good; its probably terrible. So no, I dont want to waste a good target with substandard material.

By the way, a microlith (you probably looked this up on wikipedia already but here goes) is a small stone tool which on its own cannot be used but a bunch of microliths can be put together to form a customized tool for the task at hand. Isnt that just so cool?! Its like a little Transformer tool robot in your hand. Except that when you find microliths in the cave you dont find a female hominid around with absolutely no connection to the context (read Megan Fox). Oh god another terrible one.

I was gonna add to the list I started but I might be tempted to go into a psychotic opinionated rant again and crack more terrible jokes. I'll spare you the torture. I might review a movie this weekend if I go. Also if I feel up to it, I will write about/ review the new Big Bang Theory episode tonight or maybe tomorrow. And yeah I like the show 'The Finder' so that too. For those of you who haven't heard about it, its a spin off of Bones (please tell me you have heard of Bones). That's pretty much it for now.
Later,
The_Radioactive
PS: Be prepared for several anthropological and archaeological terms and references because I like learning that and like even more to show that knowledge to sound very academic and learned!

What I learned from the latest viral video....

All right so I have been meaning to start writing a blog for some time now and today I finally felt up to it. Today's 'ramblings' are going to be about political/social hype going on right now. But I can assure you that will not be a recurring trend in my blog. Most will be random funny (or at least attempted funny) shizz. Mostly I will write about my feelings regarding new (at least for me) rock/metal songs, movies and yeah the few TV shows that I follow and try to be humorous in the process. So, disclaimer alert; this is for the most part not a serious blog. Its just some guy who thinks he can write well 'rambling on' about everyday stuff. Also I am really computer 'unsavvy' so the blog will not be very fancy and customized to look visually appealing. I apologize about the aforementioned and am open to suggestions on how to make it more 'blingy'. The views expressed will most often be ill researched and anyone is free to correct me and vehemently disagree with me and debate accordingly (I sincerely love debating but strictly online).

Anyways so getting to today's topic of ramble. Its a viral video that I bet all of you have seen by now and are probably still very charged about. Hey I am too. I am not gonna put up a link because the video is too easy to find and I do not wish to be one of those helping the video becoming a global pandemic; if it isn't that already. Its called Kony 2012; look it up on 'Facetube' (to quote James May). But anyways, being the troll bait that I am, I clicked on some spam-marked comments/links under the video. But this time it surprisingly didn't end in a rick-roll. One video led to another and finally I Googled around a bit and came to the conclusion that Kony, as terrible as he is, is not really capable of doing anything any more. The second link I will post at the end of this blog says that he is probably in a forest in Congo, "sick , starving and on his last legs". And this was written 5 years ago. I am not going to repeat what they have said for you can read it yourself. There are many more issues about the video, the people making it and the people who are labelled as 'good guys' in it. But I will leave it to you to find that out yourselves (DIY lazyass!). My point is when something goes viral and celebrities endorse it, we rush to donate and protest on the streets (This applies to people in America for people in India have other stuff to worry about). But maybe when you see something (especially on the 'internets') don't just believe and commit to it right away. Google around, look for a context read some opinions and criticisms. I am not being condescending here; I just realized this myself. Seriously, I was almost completely convinced to head down on April whatever (the video gives some date) 2012 on a Friday night and put up posters, but then I read some more from other sources and it got me thinking again. Now, I am just using this video as an example. Whatever little I say about my stand on the Kony 2012 campaign or about what should be done about him is not the point of this blog. I certainly DO NOT have any sympathies for Kony (I feel Seal team 6 should get him like they got Osama). I definitely feel he should be brought to justice (read: killed brutally). But forget all that. What I am saying is before you make up your mind about an issue, do some research. There's going to be many sides to it; know about them.

OK. Having thoroughly patronized the handful people who might read this, I will sign off. As I said before my first few blog entries will be themed 'confused' because I don't know yet what I can talk about best. But I do know that it will most likely be really light stuff. This may very well be my last slightly serious ramble.
Suggestions are welcome; no, required for those reading this and the feedback is highly appreciated. In the rare instance that you feel this has the potential to be a nice blog please spread the word.
Thanks.
The_Radioactive
PS: suggestions saying, "please find a lamer pseudonym than Radioactive." will be read but ignored. I feel this is as lame as it can be!
Oh and as promised here's the links:
http://ilto.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/the-visible-problem-with-invisible-children/
http://thedailywh.at/2012/03/07/on-kony-2012-2/