It's a Trope: Morse Code

There is even a version of Morse in the (now dead)
Star Wars Expanded Universe called Mon
Calamarian Blink Code. Leia is better at it than Han.

Welcome to the first installment of a new series I am going to be doing involving noticeable tropes in TV, movies, and books that have always bugged me. I want to explore them, where they came from, and how based in reality they actually are. To start off this series, I decided to tackle one thorn that has really been sticking in my side since childhood, Morse Code.

I was once again alerted to the trope of Morse Code while watching Interstellar, a movie which I have already said enough about, but there is one thing that I left out of my review. The crux of the plot revolves around Matthew McConaughey communicating with his daughter via Morse Code, and seeing as how the move takes place at least sixty years in the future in a world that has been almost desolated by climate change, and has no standing army and barely any government, I have to wonder how many people in that future actually know Morse Code? Yet for the purposes of Interstellar, the Morse Code usage is one of the more believable aspects, as the message is actually being sent by an artificially intelligent robot, via McConaughey, which I can (at least) believe has a program from Morse Code translation somewhere in its databanks. It is also being received as one long continuous and repeating message, which means McConaughey's daughter has the time to open an old Morse Code book and translate every dot and dash there is. However, the use of Morse Code in other media, especially when we talk about science fiction always seemed less plausible to me.

For official purposes, Morse Code was retired as an International Standard of Communication in 1999, and in 2007 the FCC even dropped their Morse Code proficiency standards for amateur radio operators (which was the last group that seemed truly enthusiastic about actually using it.) Some navies, including the United States Navy, occasionally uses the code for signal lights, but learning it is not required for most US military personnel. Obviously the language peeked with the invention of the telegraph, but I can't imagine its ever going to experience such a time of popularity again. Thus, when Captain Kirk uses Morse to communicate with Scotty, I find it a little hard to believe that, in the 23rd century, they are both fluent enough in what is, essentially, a dead language to be able to relay any meaningful message to each other.

"It's seems as if we're getting a message for the Americans in old Morse Code"
"Aren't we in the Iraq Desert under siege by technologically superior aliens?
Where did we get an old telegraph from? And what is the likelihood that any
of our survivors would have the technical proficiency with Morse Code to
even understand the American's complex battle plan as relayed by dots
and bloody dashes. That's just absurd."

Even worse, when TV shows and movies do show people using Morse Code, anyone (in real-life) who actually knows Morse Code usually notes that the actors are usually just randomly tapping at a speed that is much faster than most users could interpret. It gets even less believable when the receiver begins reading the message as fast as he/she is receiving it. The fastest operator could send about 35 words per minute, and anyone who was masterfully fluent in Morse could decode a message in their head at up to 40 words per minute. Bear in mind that those records were set back in 1942, at the height of Morse Code usage. So it is completely unlikely that most people, (especially modern or future users) whom we assume only have basic training in Morse Code could even send more than 10 words per minute, let alone decode them on the fly.

Subversions of the Morse Code trope often come in forms of comedy. Most notably on The Simpsons during the episode Mountains of Madness, when Homer and Mr. Burns are trapped in a cabin together. Mr. Burns tries typing out a distress signal on an old telegraph machine, but the audience learns that the other end is connected to a telegraph machine in a museum. No one gets the message. Another notable subversion comes from the The Office (US) when Jim and Pam admit to attending a Morse Code class just to use the obscure knowledge to mess with Dwight in the episode, The Cover Up. In fact, (in my opinion,) the trope is often best employed as a subversion. A character takes time to tap out a long message and the receivers all stand around looking one another because nobody  knows what the hell it means.

Along those lines it could also be argued that when ever a character uses S-O-S, that they are actually not conforming to the trope. As S-O-S is the most common and well known use of Morse Code, with it being only three dots, three dashes, three dots (. . . - - - . . .) However, S-O-S has a lot of misnomers attached to it. For instance, it does not stand for "Save Our Ship," or "Save Our Souls," or anything. S-O-S was picked because it was determined to be the easiest code to use as a distress transmission, so easy that even a layman would be able to do it. Additionally, it is not really S-O-S, but actually S-O-S-O-S-O-S, etc... You were expected to send out the code alternating between three dots and three dashes as long as you were able. Thus, maybe you can make an argument that many TV shows and movies use it incorrectly, but it is still hard to consider it a trope, as it can be argued that S-O-S is more vernacular than any other Morse Code transmission, at least for modern humans.

Pointing a finger at Star Trek when talking about this code is easy. Even though Starfleet is a military-like organization it is still unreasonable to believe that Starfleet Academy teaches classes in a code language that is over 300+ years old, and based upon an alphabet of one language of one planet when a Federation that has thousands of member worlds and species. One could argue that, "maybe they are using an updated code," and that, "there are still some people in the US military today who still know Morse," even if they are a rare breed. The franchise does sometimes attempt to explain it away, most notably because Uhura is a communications specialist, or because two characters know the language from playing in an holographic program based on the 1930's. Regardless, Star Trek is not the first and not the last to perpetrate this sin.

Interstellar is just the latest incarnation of this trope, but I am sure there will be more. Whenever a ship loses communication or someone has to send a warning without talking it doesn't take much effort on the part of the writers to have their character drum on some pipes, wrap their fingers on a table, or blink in rapid succession. Tropes, by their very nature are a sort of "easy-out"for writers and audience members. Despite not knowing the code, most book readers, TV watchers, and movie goers understand what it is and what it is about. Morse Code, like other tropes, is a short-hand that writers and audience members agree upon, even if it is not always believable.

If McConaughey or Captain Kirk, or Mr. Burns want to communicate via dots and dashes, we will buy into it, especially in terms of our heroes. We want to believe that the heroic characters are better than us, smarter than us, have knowledge we don't have. After all, that's why their heroes. Besides what writer or audience member wants to sit through a five minute explanation of how two character developed their own language of knocking and scratching sounds from that time they spent together back in summer camp when they were both in grade school. Sometimes it's just easier to say... "Yeah, okay... Morse Code," because ITS A TROPE.

The Signs of Interstellar

"They should have sent a poet."

Today is my birthday. I'm turning the big 3-1, which is great and all, but it really starts to make a man think about what he will be leaving behind. When you are just about a quarter of the way through your life, it starts to make you wonder what the future will hold, and what your legacy will be. Along those lines I found myself in the movie theater preparing for the three-hour journey that was Christopher Nolan's newest odyssey into loud noises, Interstellar.

Now I want to start this article by saying that I actually "kinda" liked this movie and I would recommend it. I also want to put it out there that I am not going to censor my thoughts on it, so SPOILERS AHEAD. Go watch the movie and come back and read this article.

I think above all, I appreciate the sentiment the most. Nolan hits us pretty heavy with the metaphors. A dying world, a population literally regulated to toiling in the dirt, the understanding that we have lost our spirit of exploration, all very appropriate for today's world, where all we send into space anymore are robots and Richard Branson. It is certainly a movie that tries to capture the thrill of those early Apollo missions, (among other things) and it nearly succeeds. It is for this reason I want to really really like this movie. Instead I find myself only "just" liking it, because for me it all starts with the science.

Everyone from Michio Kaku to Neil DeGrasse Tyson seems to have nothing but praise for this movie, because of its realistic portrayals of time dilation, black holes, and even a visually accurate representation of a wormhole, and I can't argue with that, (because I have never seen a wormhole.) Theoretical physicist, Kip Throne, was one of the producers of the movie, and aside from a few of the more minor nit-picky details, (such as the fact that McConaughey's ship would have been flash fried and irradiated by the black hole's accretion disk before he ever got close enough to fall into it,) the movie holds close to ideas found in Einstein's theory of relativity. Even if those concepts are so basic (such as the relationship between time and gravity) they can literally be found in any Physics 101 textbook (well maybe not in Missouri.) Really, it's once we enter the black hole that thing start to break down... for me.

If only that answer could give us some Signs.

The movie goes to great lengths to tell us that we cannot observe what happens inside a black hole, and that is completely right. Once you enter a black hole all known laws of physics start to break down, and so does the movie's artistic license (in my opinion,) because that is really when we see the movie make the jump from the realm of science to the realm of convenient plot device. You see, it's not really the science I have the problem with. Instead, it is Nolan's inability to decide what kind of movie he wants to make. Is Interstellar meant to be a call for a re-invigoration of human exploration? Is it a homage to Kubric? Is it a story about the how love conquers all? Or is a Deus Ex M. Night Shyamalan-esque concoction of events that are trying to lead us up to some big "ah-ha" moment?

First of all, the "twist," of who Murphy's Ghost is, is pretty evident from about five-minutes into the movie, and the fact that Nolan hits us on the head with bread crumb after bread crumb feels a bit ham-fisted, especially for him. Even worse, for a movie that wants to claim to be true to science, the plot is ultimately resolved not by hard-facts and calculations, but by "the unknowable power of love," and it was at the point of Anne Hathaway's "love transcends time and space," speech that the movie took a real turn for me. If Nolan had dropped all the puzzle pieces and just made a movie actually based around exploration and science and not some contrived "twist" ending, the whole thing would have been tremendously improved, in my opinion.

I didn't make that past M. Night Shyamalan comparison lightly. The way the movie sets up the ending felt a lot like Signs, with seemingly unconnected incidents coming together for some kind of cathartic payoff, and ultimately, it is Shyamlan I feel bad for. After all, Nolan is pulling off the exact same thing that poor M. Night gets crap for, every single time. Now I am not comparing their directorial styles, because Nolan is the better director by far, but more and more it seems he is trying to rely on this convoluted plot-device where you shove everything into a convenient little box by the end so that the audience can go "Ohhhhh, I get it." (Except for the solar-powered UAV scene. That went nowhere.) Regardless it is beginning to feel forced. I mean at least in Signs we were told to accept it because of "God," but in Interstellar we accept it because of what? "God-like beings who are possibly future versions of humans?" I'm not even going to get into the Fry-like grandfather paradox that whole scenario creates, because it will make your head spin.

"I did do the nasty in the pasty, with wormholes."
-5th Dimensional Future Humans

Now, I am a person that is pretty good at suspending his disbelief. You want to have me accept all the technology in Guardians of the Galaxy? That's fine. It's a fun movie and I don't care if Starlords' ship conforms with all Newtonian and Einsteinian laws of physics, because the movie isn't billing itself as being a science conformist. What irks me about Interstellar is that the advanced alien/future-us-beings that placed the wormhole near Earth, and basically transported Matthew McConaughey across time and space at the end of the movie, could have just as used their 5th dimensional powers to send an email to Michael Caine with the secrets of the math formula he was working on. Why did they have to engage in a convoluted plan to get McConaughey sucked into a black hole so he could communicate complex mathematical ideas to his daughter via morse-code-watch? Yet, even that is not the worst sin in my opinion.

The message of the movie is not that humans are explorers, or the indomitability of the human spirit, or the necessity of space travel, or even that science is cool. The message of the movie is that "the power of love conquers all, (including physics,)" which I am pretty sure was the same message as those Twilight movies. Nolan setup a movie that was supposed to be one of the most realistic science fiction movies ever made and then solved everything because "love is a thing." You can't always make an apple pie from scratch and then eat it too. You have to make a decision between being a movie about hard science and being a movie that asks the audience to wish really hard so that they can save Tinkerbell. You can't try to adhere to science and then say that "love is a greater force than gravity," especially when the only justification given is: that we are capable of loving someone who has died. I also hate a lot of people who have died too. Could McConaughey have saved the world through hatred, because the same principles apply?

Still, even that might have been salved for me if the movie had tried to end more realistically. McConaughey should have been killed (or even trapped) by the black hole. Fine, you can give him his communication of love with his duaghter through that M.C. Escher black hole, but then he has to die. Nothing escapes a black hole. Then you can end it by seeing Anne Hathaway's character arrive at her planet, and because of the time dilation she experienced while using the black hole to slingshot her there, she finds a thriving human colony. Those colonist could then tell her the story of how humanity was saved. Hell, you could even name the settlement Cooperstown or something like that, with a statue and everything, (if you really wanted to go for the gusto.) but they didn't do any of that. When the movie chose to save McConaughey from the black hole by 5th dimensional space magic, that is when Nolan shows his true colors of what he thinks is more important, science or happy endings.

"Nothing, not even light itself, can escape the forces of
a black hole... except Matthew McConaughey." -Carl Sagan

Science, and in particular space exploration, are the keys to humanity's future. I have always believed that and will continue to believe that even after they shoot my cold dead corpse out into space inside a proton torpedo casing while Scotty plays the bagpipes. Yet, I feel as if lately we have begun to move away from our pioneering roots. In that regard I was moved by this movie and its illustration of that plight. I want us to start going out among the stars again: space stations, moon colonies, Mars colonies, the works. We are quickly approaching the point in our history where we will have the technology to accomplish these amazing feats. In fact, tomorrow, the European Space Agency will be making the first ever soft-landing on a comet. That is amazing, but most people nowadays are barely aware it is even happening. I worry that even if the technology becomes viable for extended man space travel, will humanity still choose to to turn a blind eye to the stars. We need more movies like Interstellar to show us the necessity of space exploration, and the potential of humanity's future.

I will wrap this up, as this article is going almost as long as a Nolan movie. The truth is I did actually like the movie. Unfortunately, much like Inception I found Interstellar to be an enjoyable movie experience but not something I feel the need to repeat or even purchase when the inevitable blu-ray arrives on store shelves. The one thing Nolan was able to do was put a lot of quotable sound-bites in this movie, and as cliche as some of them are, they are also very true. So on this day, my 31st birthday, I will end by quoting Nolan, "Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here." If I can have one legacy for myself and the people of my generation, it is the hope that humanity will take that idea to heart, and embrace all the possibilities that accompany it.

GamerGate: Rated I for Immature

I don't want to talk about this. I fucking don't. I want to spend my time dissecting the Avengers 2 trailer, or talking about how mistaken I was about Gotham, or pondering over the DC/Marvel movie announcements, but I can't do any of that. (I mean I can, but the truth is there is a shitty elephant in the room that can't be ignored.) So I won't talk about any of the fun stuff, the stuff most of us really just want to obsess over. Instead, because there are a few dickheads out there, we have to talk about GamerGate. I was hoping this would go away, like that sharp pain I have in the back of my mouth. I was hoping if I ignored it long enough it would pass and we could all go on with our lives, but also like that sharp pain in the back of my mouth it seems as if the whole thing has become worse. Now we all have a compacted molar that requires some kind of drastic and terrible surgery.

I would ask if the douche-bags out there harassing women on video games realize that it is almost 2015 and not 1015, but that would be a stupid question, because gaming back in the 11th century required a greased pig and someone stupid enough to try and wrestle it. As opposed to nowadays when it seems that all is required is a gaming device and someone stupid enough to think that harassing women should be acceptable in any goddamn situation. I have talked before about the harassment women have faced in the nerd community, but that was a well-reasoned and sensible argument. My mistake was thinking that a level-headed plea for congeniality would ever reach the kind of bastards that perpetrate this pigheaded crap, especially in the gaming communities.

So sit back and open wide jerk-off's because I am going to frag your ass then teabag your open gullets till you learn to shut your fucking mouths.

For the record, I know its not all gamers. In fact, I believe the vast majority of gamers are good and decent people who want to do the right thing, but the culture of gaming is being driven by outdated assumptions and a few assholes who have a very special place in hell reserved for them, the level reserved for serial murders and people who chew with their mouths open. It's these jerk-offs who are driving this shitstorm of embarrassment and harassment.

For anyone who is still not sure what GamerGate is, it all started during the summer when a female game designer, (whose name I will not say, because the poor woman has taken enough crap and I don't want to add to it,) was publicly accused by an ex-boyfriend of having a romantic relationship with a journalist from the gaming/nerdy review site, Kotatku. This led to a campaign of moronic fuckheads bombarding her with so many disrespectful comments and threats that she had to flee her home. Supporters of GamerGate will tell you that the controversy is about journalistic integrity in video games, but that's utter bullshit.

Then again maybe gamer journalism may
also be part of a larger problem...

If there is corruption in video game journalism, it's not because of some Indie game designer and her woman parts. If this was really about integrity you would be directing your hateful comments at the large magazines and video game companies. Do you know how much it makes to produce a Grand Theft Auto, a Destiny, or an Assassin's Creed? Millions and millions of dollars. It is a larger time and income investment than creating a movie. So studios, of course, want to make sure they make their money back. That means they need to create hype, which means sending advanced (read: free) copies of their games and equipment to reviewers and magazines (I would assume along with a generous gift basket.) If I'm a reviewer and I am getting free games from Sony or EA, maybe I might start considering that if I keep slamming their products I may one day stop getting free brand-new games, which the rest of us have to shell out sixty or seventy bucks for. So maybe I would start easing off on the criticism, giving an extra star here and there, and basically ensure that my free video game train keeps pulling into my goddamn motherfucking station.

So maybe all you assholes out there should start threatening the lives the people over at Gamer Magazine or Nintendo. Maybe you should start hacking them and releasing their personal information onto the web. Oh, wait... You won't, because you're cowards, and because this has never really been about journalistic integrity. It's because there is a small group of cheeseheads (Fuck you, I'm not really good at cursing,) in our gaming culture that thinks its alright to harass women even though 48% of gamers are women. That means 48% of people out there are too afraid to talk in voice chat or reveal in anyway they are women. God forbid you let the other people on Call of Duty know you're of the opposite gender, because prepare to spend the rest of the match hearing nothing but catcalls, sexual remarks, sexual threats, and probably a few instances of the words "whore," "slut," "bitch," or maybe even a colorful remix of all three put together (like a kaleidoscope of hatred.) Who the hell would want to deal with that?

Even worse, the culture of gaming says this is okay. Video games themselves portray women as objects to be rescued or eye-candy to be ogled. Maybe that's why when women try to speak out about their delegated roles in both videos games and in the gaming culture they find themselves immediately shamed and threatened in the worst possible way for doing so. Recently, Felicia Day, spoke out about GamerGate, and within an hour (60 fucking minutes) hackers released her home address. Video game critic, Anita Sarkeesian, had an entire college campus threatened with a school shooting if they allowed her to speak. Even Robin Williams' daughter, Zelda Williams, had a bunch of fucking asshats send her graphic Photoshopped pictures of her father's dead body (May he rest in peace) right after his death. She had to shut down her twitter account because of the harassment.

When women speak up for themselves an element of gamers start to feel threatened, yet when male gamers speak out against GamerGate like Dan Golding or BuzzFeeds' Joe Bernstein they receive almost no blow-back, and certainly not on a level with the kind of death threats and hacking scandals that get targeted at women. It's because the shitbag cowards out there that perpetrate this crap don't care so much about defending their point as shaming women. I am not going to go into the more complex psychological underpinnings of that kind of attitude, whether it stems from early social awkwardness, early damage caused by an overbearing female figure, or just having too small of a dick, I can't say. I'm not a psychiatrist.

Life can be dark and unfair, to balance that: here is a
picture of a puppy and kitten napping together.

Regardless, if there is one thing I can't stand it is people that get their perverse kicks from making others feel worse about themselves. So I'm done being rational. The fuckholes out there who do this to women are the worst kind of people. They are driven by their own fears and insecurities, and they spit hatred for the same reason that when you were in kindergarten you pulled that girl's hair, because you were too socially undeveloped and awkward to fully articulate or realize your own short-comings. In a six-year old it's cute. In an online gamer its sad and dangerous. In fact it is that unawareness and those fears that drive these morons to do everything they do. It's easy to make threats and be a douche-bag when you're sitting safely behind the anonymity of an unoriginal reddit handle. It's easy to catcall and slut-shame when you are nothing but a digital voice standing behind a pixelated gun-barrel. It's easy to be afraid when you realize that a culture and something you have built your identity on is not really what you thought it was. (You may not be well liked by women, you may have a small dick, but at least you can win at Halo... oh wait a woman beat you... Your world must be crashing down around you)... too fucking bad. 

Do you realize that with 48% of gamers being women, if all women stopped gaming that very expensive gaming industry, which I was talking about earlier, would completely collapse. Maybe it is easy to forget that the people on the other end of the Internet are actual human beings with hopes and fears and loves and dreams. Maybe that is the dangerous by-product of an industry and a culture that for so long has seen women as nothing more than a pair of boobs in an impractical suit of armor, or a blog of pink pixels which you need to rescue by defeating a lizard monster. Then again, maybe some people are just assholes for no other reason than that they are. For whatever reason I am sick to fucking death of this kind of vitriol and sadistic treatment of women. 

So suck it up, accept it, because eventually every kindergartener need to grow up and learn to play in the sandbox nicely with the girls. (I promise they won't give you fucking cooties.) Just because you play games set in the dark ages doesn't mean it's okay to act like it.

I would say being a woman gamer is a lot like this...
but really it just seems that being a woman in general is "a lot like this.".

Blog My Hell

There has been a minor craze going around YouTube in honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday called Draw My Hell. It was started by Mark Douglas of Barely Political, and the idea is to draw and narrate what your own personal hell would be like. Well I suck at drawing, so instead I am taking this concept and turning it toward my talents and I'm calling it "Blog My Hell." If anyone else is interested in doing this or the Draw My Hell challenge please feel free to share. I am always interested in seeing the inner torments of other people who aren't me.

In my Hell it is always a Tuesday, in early March. I hate Tuesdays, and early March is that time when you are sick of winter but you still have to endure for at least another six weeks until you get even a hint of spring warmth, and there isn't another day off from work in sight for at least four weeks. The dress code for Hell is a buttoned up shirt that never wants to stay tucked into my one-size too small pants and a tie that is always a little too tight, but for some reason won't hang straight down my shirt. My hair is always at that length right before I get a hair cut, where it just gets hot and itchy all the time.

I wake up every Tuesday morning and I have to shave, even though I don't need to. (It's just one of those things in Hell.) The water pressure in the shower is always too low to be refreshing, and there is no sweet spot between the hot and cold. Breakfast is a banana that you aren't quite sure whether or not it's still good to eat. I mean it tastes banana-ish, but it's kind of mushy and the dark spots I see on the peel give me pause.

Driving to work takes two hours and there is nothing on the radio but every Britney Spears and Ke$ha songs I've heard ten thousands times before, the kind that get stuck in your head and sit there on repeat for the rest of the day. For just a little extra discomfort, there is also a sampling of the kind Country songs that make me feel slightly uncomfortable to be a white man. All the while I sit in traffic raging at the cars that are too stupid to understand how to make a left hand turn at an intersection. (Pull into the middle of the lane so other hellspawn can pass you on the right! Damnit!)

I am always three minutes late when I get to work. I then spend the rest of my day never finishing any of my projects because I am constantly being interrupted by people with stupid questions or are too lazy to do something themselves. "What does it mean when it tells me to left-click?" "What does this error message mean?" "How do you do a mail-merge?" "How do you type the word 'six-six-six?'" I then spend the rest of my day explaining to old women how to download pictures from their email. Everyday I have to work through lunch, and the only snacks left to eat all contain pecans, raisins, and coconut. So that I am forced to look at the snacks and get hungrier and hungrier, but am unable to eat them.

It takes four hours to get back home through traffic and idiots. When I do finally get to eat, my dinner is always unsatisfying. My one roommate is an over weight forty-year old man who always makes me watch bad movies with him and then spends the majority of the time talking through the movies and explaining things I didn't care to know in the first place. In his spare time he collects pieces of toenails and uses them to construct scale models of historical turn-of the-last-century factories from the British Industrial Revolution. He has the coolest and hottest girlfriend who seems like she might be in to me, but of course neither of us will ever try anything because we both value the commitment she made to her toenail obsessed boyfriend. My other roommate is a nineteen-year old girl who "totes speaks like this so much, that I can't even..." and for no reason feels the need to claim everything even when it was clearly labeled with my name on it. She has no respect for boundaries and at night she stays up till 2 am blasting Britney Spears and Ke$ha songs while talking on the phone about how much her friends are basic bitches and who she hooked up with last night at the club. She spends her free time tanning and likes to have a beer and talk about how "totes wasted" she is. When I try to have a reasonable discussion with her she just screams really loudly till I start bleeding from the ears.

For the few precious hours of alone time I have, I sit in front of my half-finished novel, and alternate between starting at a blank page and pacing the room as I suffer from the worst case of writer's block imaginable. Sometimes I'll try to do something else but will get frustrated and go back to staring at the blank page as my mind fumbles for something (ANYTHING) to write down. Even worse, throughout my day, I will periodically come up with the most brilliant ideas for stories, novels, blogs, etc, (Like award winning, Harry Potter-level, ideas,) but the minute I sit down in front of my computer or take out a piece of paper to write it down, the idea will completely vanish and I'll be left with nothing but more writer's block. There is nothing to read in Hell, except 50 Shades of Gray and other trashy and grammatically incorrect fan-fiction that have made millions of dollars for authors who are way less talented than me.

In Hell, all my jokes are unfunny and poorly timed. In fact, whenever I say anything people just look at me like I have no idea what I am talking about. No one uses the oxford comma. My cell phone never has service and I am constantly missing important phone calls from friends and family whom I never get to see. I also miss calls from that better job I applied for, that girl I had a crush on back in high school, and the one that warns me to be in work the next day a half-hour earlier because I have an important meeting with an old woman who needs me to show her how to "do the Google." After a week of 86-straight Tuesdays, Satan allows us to have one Sunday, (Ironic, I know) but the day starts at 7 pm, and I have no time to do anything but grocery shop at Wal-Mart. After 348 days, any small amount of progress I have made on my projects at work or my personal writing gets reset and I start it all over again.

And that is my personal Hell.

Comics, Cosplay, and Coville

I don't usually like to delve into my personal life on this blog, after all, it's none of your damn business, (and it's never really that interesting,) but sufficed to say I have been having a rough couple of months. Yet, no cloud is so dark as to not let a little light through, (Well maybe a mushroom cloud, but then you have to hide in a refrigerator, and then people get upset...) anyway, the ray of light on my dark days has always been the anticipated arrival of New York Comic Con. This year marked a lot of firsts for me. It was the first time I went to the convention solo and the first time I tried my hand at cosplay... yes I made a costume.

I've never cosplayed before, but it has always been something I have been interested in, mostly the creative aspect of it. Maybe that is why I decided to go with designing a Sith Lord costume as opposed to any sort of recognizable pop culture figure. I was more intrigued with the process of imagination and creation than the process of trying to replicate something that was already out there... Also I got to build a lightsaber.

It all started for me when I got a chance to get colored contact lenses for free and I decided to get red and gold lens, like a Dark Jedi. At that moment in time I had some vague ideas of making a Sith costume, but for the most part I forgot about it and moved on with my life. The idea resurfaced in August, while I was going through some personal problems, as a way to give myself new focus. It seemed like the right kind of ambitious and creative project that could help get my mind off my own issues and build excitement for Comic Con. So I set to work researching techniques on the internet, running material tests, and eventually settling on a design for myself that I thought would be both challenging and manageable.

Various pieces, including contacts.

I won't go into to too much detail of my process, but I will tell you that there were a few times I thought I had bit off more than I could chew, and more than a few false starts. Yet, I kept going and with each new piece my apartment became more cluttered but my vision began to take shape, and it was exciting. I made the costume mostly of craft foam and fabric I bought at local stores. I hand-cut, hand-sewed, hand-dremeled, painted, glued, glossed, weathered, stitched, pinned, etc everything myself. (I was also advised to highlight that I made pouches for my belt, as they turned out to be very useful later on for holding my phone, money, and extra safety-pins.) Regardless, the creation process was a lot of fun, of course after I was done with all of that there is a cold hard realization waiting for me at the end... I had to actually put it on and wear the damn thing through the streets of New York.

So be it, and on that Saturday of Comic Con I woke early, stitched myself into my costume (which took a few hours.) Next I applied the colored contact lenses, (which also took a good hour of crying and cursing.) Finally, I put on a bit of make-up to pale my skin and darken my eyes and I was off to the show.

Perhaps the most surreal experience was riding on the train, a mask half covering my face, wondering what the transit police were thinking. At least I looked pretty fearsome, which worked out pretty well when opening a spot to stand on the crowded train. I don't think I really relaxed until I found myself walking through the streets of New York, my cloak blowing out behind me, lightsaber in hand, and a bus load of scared tourists scrambling to get out of my way. I felt fierce. You couldn't seem my mouth under my balaclava, but I was smiling. Once I made it to the Javits Center I was wholly unremarkable, just one in a crowd of costumed thousands.

Jedi and Sith were not "in" this year, so at least I stood out in that respect and I had a few people who wanted a picture with the newest Darth in town. I saw a lot of Ghostbusters, Batmen, Attack on Titan and other Anime that I have no idea about. (It's not really my thing.) Mostly, though, I was excited for the panels, and although I never got to see Bill Nye, (That damn line was packed,) I did get more than a few surprises. I got to listen to Ron Perlman talk, and I got to learn Dothraki from the guy who created the language for Game of Thrones. I also attended an awesome panel on writing and gaming (and got a few free books for my troubles.) One of the most interesting panels was the Max Brooks' panel where he talked about World War Z and explained how the movie went so horribly wrong from his book. On a whim I sat in on the American Dad panel, (because my feet were tired and I wanted to watch a cartoon,) and though Seth Macfarlane was no where to be seen the panel did get a surprise guest in the guise of Sir Patrick Stewart. I sat ten feet away from the man himself.

Full Costume

However, the best surprise and the moment that is going to stick with me for a long long time was when I sat in on the Sci-Fi Authors Quiz show. The only reason I went in there was because I was trying to get a seat for the panel after that one, and watching four unknown science fiction authors try to answer obscure science fiction trivia was entertaining enough to keep my interest for forty-five minutes. I had assumed it would be a minor distraction and a chance to sit down, at least until they announced the names of the four authors and I found myself staring at Bruce Coville.

If the name sounds vaguely familiar its because you probably picked up one of his books as a kid at those school-run book fairs, Aliens Ate My Homework, My Teacher is an Alien, Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher, etc. I am not lying when I say that this man was my first (and my most formative) favorite author. I used to read all of his books, and a few more than a few times. I had to buy Aliens Ate My Homework twice because I wore out the first copy. Suddenly sitting before me was the man who taught me that it was okay to be weird and to enjoy reading. Bruce Coville was the man that first inspired me to write, and without warning there he was, right in front of me.

After the panel ended and people were mulling about waiting for the next one to begin I found myself debating if I should risk losing my seat to try and talk with him as he was leaving the room. I didn't want to be that guy, and I had a pretty good seat. Very quickly though I ended that debate with a mental slap. "When was I ever going to get the chance again?" Coville wasn't even supposed to be at the convention. He was never listed as a guest. So I scrambled nervously over to him, which must have been a site to see. Considering I was more than a foot taller and dressed as a Lord of the Sith, I must have looked completely out of place as I meekly reached out and shook his hand.

Also Sgt. Slaughter was there... looking a little less "Yo Joe,"
and a little more like "Yo... let me catch my breath... Joe"

It amazed me that there weren't more people crowding around him to say hello. Instead, I found that I had him completely to myself for a good five minutes. During that time I gushed more than I meant to, apologized for my imposing appearance, and basically told him how much his books had influenced my life. To Coville's credit he smiled and seemed genuinely interested and touched by what I was saying. He even gave me advice, writer to writer. "Never give up." He told me the story of how one of his more popular series sat on his shelf for fifteen years, unpublished. Then he shook my hand and thanked me saying, "You write books and you wonder if anyone will remember them. It's good to hear that someone has." He smiled one more time, we said good-bye, and he walked off. I resumed my seat and for the first time in a while, I smiled myself. I don't believe in signs, but if I did... that was a pretty good one.

Of course there were plenty of other highlights I am glossing over. I got some good deals on shirts and figurines. I got a few free comic books and the usual assortment of other free promotional crap. I got to catch up with Kirby Krackle, (whom I told you about last week,) and see some awesome Nerd Rock at Rock Comic Con, (where I helped carry a stage-diving lead singer of Daenerys and the Targaryens.) I also got to catch up with my friends Sam and Adam, and eat a burger at a dinner dressed as a Sith Lord.

I had been nervous about cosplaying and going to the convention alone, but once again New York Comic Con did not fail to deliver on the surprises, the goodies, and the fun. Even better I got to go home on Saturday and strip myself out of my costume (which also took an hour,) and shed the skin of a Dark Jedi, because I am done with darkness for now. It's time to step back into the light, and my future is looking a little brighter these days.

Kirby Krackle

It occurs to me that of all the artists I have featured, there is one in particular which I have never written a full article on. I have mentioned them in passing I have never talked about them in depth, and this is one musical act that deserves to be highlighted.

Kirby Krackle sounds like something Walter White would brew with his chemistry set, but they are, in fact, a nerd rock band from Seattle, led by front-man Kyle Stevens. (It is also the name of an artistic convention in comic books, but that's not important right now.) They have risen to nerd stardom on the backs of their witty lyrics and catchy tunes that make references to everything from comic books to movies to video games to action figures. With musical stylings ranging from acoustic guitar to full electrical instrumentation with an interspersing of rap lyrics, the songs of KK always prove to be both enjoyable and incredibly imaginative. Some songs like Nerd Money, Booty Do Math, or Up, Up, Down, Down, are meant to be both fun and irrelevant, while other songs like: Needing a Miracle, When I Miss You, and Dusty Cartridges & Long Boxes can be surprisingly emotional. Most of their songs strike an impressive balance between being outwardly referential and nerdy while hiding a deeper layer of meaning. Even better you don't need to be a hardcore nerd or comic fan to get most of the jokes, (though it helps.)

The group has been a personal favorite of mine ever since I heard them first perform at the Supanova Pop Culture Convention in Melbourne, Australia, and was lucky enough to get to talk with Kyle and his partner, Jim, after an impressive performance, and even get to know them a bit better. At the time, and having lived in Melbourne for months, it was just nice to talk with some people who had the same funny accent as me, and it helped that they were both stand up guys. In the years since my return to the States and the craziness of my life I have managed to check in with Kirby Krackle, during their brief stopovers at New York Comic Con, and though their fame continues to grow, (having opened for Weird Al, and done some extensive touring around the US and Canada,) they remain the same down-to-Earth guys that I first met down under.

If you don't know who Kirby Krackle is, I recommend you check them out. If you don't know what Nerd Rock is, then I doubly recommend that you check them out. KK may not be some Heisenberg created narcotic, but for me they represented a gateway into the nerd rock scene. So visit their website and their site on Bandcamp or iTunes. While you're there buy some of their songs and albums, and support the awesomeness that is Kirby Krackle and Nerd Rock. I promise you won't be disappointed by what you hear.

Kirby Krackle Homepage
Bandcamp
iTunes
Or support them through their Patreon

Ring Capactiy

In Another Castle

In the Land of Neh

Wherever I go, I find myself surrounded by pig heads.

Did you ever wish you were somewhere else? I have been wishing that all week. With it being October and the midst of my busy period I have found myself nostalgically remembering the lazy days of summer when I was two months younger and so much more naive. Mostly, though I find myself recalling my adventures in South Korea. I spent ten days in the beautiful country whose nickname I don't know and am too lazy to look up, (And will hence forth be calling it the Land of the Casual Mountain Climbers.)

My trip to South Korea was beyond anything I could have expected and even though the country was never on my top ten list, I am tremendously glad I got a chance to see it, experience its culture, and eat its food... and boy did I eat its food. Every meal was a feast of meats, spices, rice, and noodles. In South Korea you don't just eat, you consume massive portions of delicious food with friends, like a medieval banquet (only with less dead Starks.)

This was what they would call a "light meal."

My visit to Korea was more than just one of sightseeing and relaxation (both of which I got plenty of during my stay there,) but it was also a chance to catch up with my long lost friends, Jon and Evie, who are currently living in the country. They were gracious enough to give my friend Doug and I a place to sleep and free reign over their fridge and alcohol. In return, we generally ate up their free time and sent them to work each morning bleary eyed and sleep deprived. It also helped to have "locals" on our side as they could recommend both food and places of interest, which was ultimately how Doug and I found this small eatery that served the best freaking pork cutlet I have ever had. I mean I am not exaggerating. It was delicious. The cutlet was lightly battered and fried, but a little sweet as well. Tender and juicy it came in a rice bowl with egg and other assorted mixings and spices. I want one now...

Anyway, like I mentioned earlier, food was a big part of our journeys in South Korea. From fried chicken in Suwon (I'm talking an entire chicken that was fried,) to a beef and leaf buffet in Uijeongbu, I did not have a bad meal while I was there. Thankfully, I also found enough excuses to exercise to balance out my expanding waist line.

There was the usual walking around that comes with exploring new places, but on top of that I found myself hiking up a centuries old fortress that is now a UN World Heritage site. With a little luck and skill we were even able to find a secret entrance into the fortress that required us to shimmy over a narrow ledge and pass through a forest that may or may not have been mystical in nature. It all paid off though, because we were able to sneak into the Hwaseong Fortress and unknowingly skip paying the entrance fee. We then immediately turned the wrong way and blundered into a toll booth and had to pay the fee anyway. (A fee of 1,000 Won = 1.00 Dollar)

If that path isn't a Call to Adventure
then Joseph Campbell is a dirty liar.

Yet, the real exercise came when we scaled Dobongson Mountain. This day trip started out almost laughably as we discussed how over prepared for hiking the South Koreans around us seemed to be. After all, the hiking trails were paved and barely constituted any rise more challenging than a handicap ramp. Our words, however, soon turned to bitter ash in our mouth as an hour later we found ourselves lost in what looked like a dry and rocky river bed. So with no options (we couldn't turn back or a group of picnicking South Korean women were sure to laugh at the two stupid white boys), and a steely clad determination borne of ignorance we pressed on. The boulders were bigger than us in some places but we scaled them with a skill befitting a drunk billy goat. Eventually the bed started to turn into a cliff and at one point we tried to turn off our path only to find a thick growth of trees and a rather terrifying frog that almost dropped Doug on top of my head. We soon reached the peak of what I was beginning to suspect was a dry waterfall only to be met with a small Korean man going in the opposite direction. We watched him for a moment before tracing the path where he had emerged. A flat, almost impossibly smooth rock about 5 yards wide on a incline of at least 100 degree, separated us from regaining our path. Doug climbed it first, doing his best Spider-Man impression, slipping and sliding all the way. I followed, feeling thankful that I had misplaced my older sneakers (and their worn treads) and was forced to pack my new sneakers with their greater traction.

Our next land mark was an Buddhist hermitage that required a hike up a long set of rocky stairs. Once at the top we made the judgement that we were lost and turned back down before realizing that we hadn't been lost at all, and therefore had to climb all 300 steps again. After a few more hours of trekking and climbing we made it to our first peak and got a stunning view of Seoul and the surrounding countryside, as well as a stunning view of the hundreds of South Korean retirees who had beat us to the mountain top. Apparently, climbing is practically a national past time in South Korea. A friendly English-speaking man related to us that on weekends the mountain would be packed of upwards of 10,000 tourists climbing all over the rocky peaks like ants on a discarded bread roll. Mind you, I took in this news as I was sitting there gulping down water at an elevation of almost 2,000 feet above sea level, while I watched people almost three times my age strolling across peaks and cliffs as if they were walking to get the Sunday paper. There was even a man doing jumping jacks in the distance atop the highest visible peak. (Because when I do my calisthenics, damn it, I want to ensure there is the visible specter of death hanging over me.) That higher peak was also our goal.

Flat and sheer with no handholds. That's just a
regular Sunday jog in South Korea.

We set out again, this time with a choice. We could have gone the safe and relatively flat route, along the forested backside of the mountain, but instead we went with Door No. 2 and took the mountainous path where we walked along ridges the width of a human leg. Thankfully some insightful Korean had drilled metal poles and steel cables into the rock-face so we had hand holds as we defied gravity and commonsense on the windswept peaks. The only incident came when we were descending one peak before reaching the next. The trail zig-zagged along a sheer wall, and the only way to get down was to literally hang on for life to the metal poles fused into the boulders around us. I took a misstep and nearly lost my footing, but in my rush to hang on my water bottle slipped out of my pocket and fell to the forest below. I watched in helplessness as my precious life-giving water plummeted away into the green cloud of forest below me. I felt like Ace Ventura in the beginning of Ace Ventura 2, or like Sylvester Stallone in that movie which Ace Ventura 2 was parodying, but I have never seen, and therefore don't feel comfortable making a reference to it. And that was how I littered in a South Korean National Park. Its what I am going to call, "extreme littering," (which is probably the title of a show coming this Spring to Discovery Channel.)

Thankfully, I was not deported for my crime, because South Korea's neighbor to the north was not a place I wanted to go. (I know that was the weakest paragraph transition I have ever written, and I'm sorry.) Also I am lying because, it was a place I very much wanted to go. Evie was able to set up a tour for Doug and myself of the DMZ, the border between North and South Korea. It was, with no exaggeration, one of the most interesting experiences I have ever had.

I do not want to go into too much detail, as I am not sure what exactly the contract I signed with the US Military covered, and I would hate to give away state secrets. (Don't tell North Korea, that there is a gift shop on the southern side of the DMZ.) Before venturing to the border we were forced to sign papers, basically absolving the American and South Korean governments from any responsibility in the event we became casualties of war. (I figure the ceasefire had held for 60 years, what were the odds it would bust apart on the day of my visit? Then I remembered Adam's Law, but decided to sign my life away anyway.) We were led around by an American Army Private who showed us the conference room that straddled the border between North and South. I even got to cross the border (In the safety of that conference room) and stick a toe in North Korea (IT COUNTS.)

When it comes to flags, we ain't got nothing on North Korea.

We also caught a glimpse of Propaganda City, the city that Kim Jong-un erected on the North Korean side as a shining example of the glorious People's Republic. It should be noted that the city is completely fake, with concrete buildings and painted on windows and doors. It's mostly deserted except for the few people left there to maintain it, the giant speaker system that the North uses to blast propaganda messages at the South, and the four hundred-pound flag that sits atop one of the tallest flag poles in the world. It's pretty hard to miss. We also visited one of five tunnels that the North tried to use to burrow into the South to launch some kind of secret invasion. All the tunnels were eventually discovered by the South (Usually in some sort of comic fashion that left the construction or utility workers staring into the faces of several confused and panicked North Korean would-be-infiltrators.) All in all, the whole experience makes you realize that Kim Jong-un and his son Kim Jong-il are really just Saturday Morning Cartoon villains, coming up with endlessly ridiculous plots and schemes that would make Wile E. Coyote shake his head in bewilderment. However, that is not say that the North is toothless. They have attacked the South before, mostly with missiles and artillery, most recently in 2010.

Yet, despite the dangers of war, falling off mountains, or irate old Korean women telling you that you need to pay admission to a centuries old fortress, I highly recommend this country to anyone looking to visit a new place that may or may not be on your standard list of tourist locales. It is a surprising and friendly country. The people are very used to Americans and are always willing to help someone in need. Most signs are in English and Korean, and when in doubt you can always walk into a restaurant and just nod. I promise that whatever food they bring out, it will be delicious and probably spicy. I was glad I got to spend the time there that I did, and even more thankful that I got to visit my two close friends, Jon and Evie. I miss them, almost as much as I miss that freakin' fried pork cutlet. I may have to visit again sometime.