Reviews aren’t generally a problem, but interviews sometimes prove to be a much more difficult task. I often have a hard time coming up with decent interview questions, even for bands I’m extremely familiar with. This is incredibly aggravating; the last thing I want to do is waste the bands’ time by sounding like some dork writing for his high school newsletter with boilerplate questions. “So, uh…what are your influences?”

I’ve been listening to and studying metal for decades at this point, so it’s not like I’m ignorant. I just have severe troubles translating my thoughts into words, something which has plagued me in other creative endeavors.

Usually I’m able to pore over my own work and finally get a set of topics squeezed out after multiple revision. But even then, I’m not always completely pleased with the final result. Maybe I’m a perfectionist, but I should be able to do better.

If anyone has a solution, I’m all ears. Until then, I guess the only way to fix this is to listen to even more metal. (That’s my answer to everything.)

These idiots cannot function without their phones, and that’s goddamned pathetic. Look at the first clown; he says he’s on his phone “all day, every day.” Get a job! Aside from the fact that these “real people” seriously need to get a life, the worst part of this ad is when one of them says “If my phone is dead, then my business is dead.”

Well, then you’re a really shitty businessman.

Your business should never have a single point of failure; aside from making sure all of your data is routinely backed up, you should have multiple redundancies in place to cover equipment failure or loss. Since a phone is a tiny item that is easily broken or misplaced, hedging your entire business on it is foolhardy. Yet, I can guarantee that plenty of morons out there do just that, and this commercial proves it as one of the characters in there is marketing the latest device directly to them. Yeah, that’s someone I’d want to do business with.

The people in the commercial are supposed to be “real” and not actors, but even if that’s true, the real world folks they are meant to embody are unfortunately all too common. Barely a day goes by where I don’t want to slap the phone out of someone’s hand, especially since rudeness goes hand-in-hand with their addiction. Business relying on these devices above all else only makes it worse.

• Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry. It’s probably unfair to lump all three of the Monster Cereal mascots into one place, but they all hang out together anyway. Count Chocula is actually my favorite sugar-bomb breakfast, and how can you go wrong with cereal versions of classic monsters? I just have to wonder what kind of world it is in those commercials where sweetened cereals are hyped by a vampire, a patchwork reanimated corpse, and a ghost. The kids in that world must live in a constant state of fear.
• Lucky the Leprechaun. Aside from being a ridiculous Irish stereotype, our poor impish friend has to deal with the constant threat of thieves. What makes matters worse is that the thieves are children. I know there’s the whole legend behind catching a leprechaun to get his pot of gold, but this is just breakfast we’re talking about. Cut Lucky some slack…or maybe just ask him for some cereal. There’s clearly enough to go around without resorting to stealing.
• Trix Rabbit. You think Lucky has it bad? His foes are thieves, but the Trix Rabbit’s young enemies are a bunch of goddamned racists. What, you don’t believe me? Just look at their catchphrase: “Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!” Now substitute “Negro” and “whites” for “rabbit” and “kids” respectively, and you try to tell me that those kids aren’t horrible bigots. (They’re also ageists, since they adamantly state that only kids can have Trix cereal.)
• Sugar Bear. Golden Crisp’s mascot isn’t much now, but back when I was a kid, he beat the shit out of everyone. Eating Golden Crisp would supercharge the guy, and he’d mercilessly assault his foes. If he wasn’t doing that, he settled for teasing other animals instead. What an asshole!
• Cap’n Crunch. Wait, what? The genial naval officer is on the list? Well, when the captain wasn’t bringing sugary corn cereal to kids everywhere, Crunch was waging a prolonged military campaign against the Soggies. Granted, the milk-based malcontents weren’t too nice, but was the fight against them really worth that much time and manpower? The Soggies were sentient dairy products, not nuclear terrorists. Sheesh.

I didn’t bother to mention Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, or Sonny the Cuckoo, because mascots like them are rather benign; they have no problem bringing cereal to kids or sharing. In fact, they could teach those spoiled brats taunting Lucky and the Trix Rabbit a thing or two about acting like a decent human being. (And I bet Tony could kick Sugar Bear’s ass.)

The point is to claim that Coke Zero tastes great and has no calories, as if the two things were mutually exclusive. Everyone’s going to have a different opinion on that, but the thing that raises my blood pressure is that the main character of the ad is a spoiled little bastard with a false sense of entitlement. The douchebag is given all sorts of cool things as he grows up, and instead of saying “thank you,” all he can say is “And?” Whatever he received just isn’t good enough, and instead of showing gratitude, he feels that the proper response is to demand more. The only time the words “thank you” are mentioned is at the end of the ad…to a goddamned soda can.

What makes this ad really aggravating is that Coca-Cola believes this behavior is acceptable in real life. In the company’s own words:

Conventional wisdom says we should be happy with what we have — but we think it’s OK to ask for more. We think the best word in the English language is the innocuous conjunction that makes real Coke taste AND zero calories possible. So we made a commercial to showcase the power of our favorite three-letter word, and the awesome stuff that can happen when it’s used correctly.

No, that’s not using the word correctly. The character was not asking for more, he was demanding more without so much as a smidgin of thanks. If I had pulled any of that shit when I was growing up — for example, demanding more when getting an ice cream cone — my mother would’ve backhanded me, and rightfully so.

There’s far too many people who feel entitled to far more shit than they should have. Commercials like this make it worse, and Coca-Cola should be ashamed of themselves for promoting this horrible, selfish behavior.

As much as I love the medium, I beginning to notice some detrimental effects to collecting comics. (No, this isn’t another Four-Color Nightmare post.) First off is the obvious issue of space, which I’ve lamented when it comes to many of my other collections as well. I don’t own as many comics are some really hardcore collectors, but my boxes do take up a significant amount of storage and closet space. (And let’s not forget trade paperbacks cluttering up the bookshelf.)

My second concern is the omnipresent spectre of price. I’m not spending hundreds of dollars every few weeks on comics; sadly, there are people who do that, and I know quite a few of them. Still, I probably average about forty bucks a month or so, and that does add up. Comic book prices are ridiculous as it is, with the average price being $3.99 nowadays.

Third, and possibly the most important: how often will I reread these comics, if ever? Series like Green Lantern and Iron Man are consistent; I break out my favorite issues often enough. But as for the countless others…if I’m not going to read certain comics again, then why keep them? For example, I started collecting Ultraverse back issues about a year ago, and I’ve begun to regret that decision. Most of the stories I read were good, but others were just forgettable. More to the point, I doubt I’ll even pick up the good ones again. (The exceptions are my favorite series under that banner, Freex and The Night Man.)

So what are my options? Aside from quitting buying comics altogether, there’s only one: going digital. You know that I vastly prefer physical media rather than a file, but digital copies do have their advantages, most notably in terms of space. However, digital comics are rife with their own problems.

I refuse to buy digital comics that include digital rights management (DRM), nor will I buy them if they do not have a download option. I never bought any music from iTunes or Amazon until they ditched DRM, and there’s no reason why the comics industry can’t follow suit. As for the download requirement, many digital comics services have your purchases stored in the cloud. That’s how storefronts like comiXology work, to the best of my knowledge; I believe you can also download comics from them, but they’re DRM-locked to comiXology’s software. That makes them next to worthless. I can read comics from my collection that are over thirty years old without a problem; who knows if comiXology or similar services will be around that long?

The price of digital comics is something else I take issue with. To be fair, the digital price problem also affects other media like ebooks and music, too, but it’s far worse with comics. In general, digital comics cost the same amount as their print counterparts. This is nothing more than price gouging; publishing digitally costs a lot less than print. (I will say this, however: some of the $0.99 sales that comiXology runs are pretty good.)

I’ve got some tough choices ahead. (Especially with Valiant Comics returning with a slew of hotly anticipated books.) I can’t keep collecting physical comics forever; I don’t have that kind of money or space! Any other suggestions?

I’ve heard people scoff at naysayers who haven’t read or otherwise experienced the source material, dismissing their concerns with a condescending “you don’t get it.” You see this a lot when rabid fans defend cult favorites or other films that didn’t rake in a load of scratch at the box office. And yes, this the same crowd that often bashes popular movies for being popular. (This behavior happens with video games, television shows, and comics, too, but it’s far more prevalent with movies.)

The “you don’t get it” crowd is absolutely wrong for a very simple reason: you shouldn’t have to do any homework to understand and enjoy a movie. You should be able to go in and watch it without knowing a damned thing about it in advance; it’s the film‘s job, not yours, to tell the full story. The only exception to this rule is in the case of sequels; but even then, the sequel(s) should not require any advance knowledge other than the preceding film(s).

If an adaptation is confusing unless you read the book first, then it’s failed as a film. Simple as that.

Afterword: Yes, I can hear you: Cracked posted something like this two weeks ago. All I can say in my defense is that a) great minds think alike, and b) I actually wrote this post at the same time as the adaptation one, or week or two before that went live. It was originally part of that same post, but I split it off and scheduled it to go up later. It’s nothing more than a coincidence that Christina H’s piece (which, of course, is written much better than mine) went up a day after the initial post that spawned this one; I assume her post, just like mine, was written well in advance.

I decided recently to rewatch Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, as I haven’t seen it since the end of my college years, when it aired as part of Cartoon Network’s Toonami block back in 2000. Now, I realize that Gundam Wing probably isn’t “cool” anymore, but I don’t really give a shit. Since the “Anime Legends” reissues of the series don’t break the bank, adding Gundam Wing to my DVD collection at long last was a no-brainer.

Anyway, I used to catch the episodes during the midnight broadcasts, though I’d occasionally watch them after class in the late afternoon. It was the first Gundam series I really got into, as I was only vaguely familiar with the others at that point. I checked out some of the earlier series shortly after seeing Gundam Wing, especially after winning a VHS boxset of Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory in a Wizard magazine contest. (Those tapes are currently buried in storage.)

Still, Gundam Wing remains my favorite. I had action figures of the Sandrock, Heavyarms, and Tallgeese II, and built models of the Deathscythe Hell Custom and Epyon. I never ended up getting the DVD boxsets of Gundam Wing upon release because they were just too damned expensive, and my fandom just drifted to the back of my memory for a while. While recently cleaning out a box of old action figures, I found a few broken Gundam parts, thus kicking off this latest bout of nostalgia.

As is standard procedure for the way my idiot brain works, rekindling my interest in Gundam Wing made me wonder about the various other Gundam series out there, especially the ones released post-Wing that I know nothing about.

Holy shit, there’s a lot of them.

I’ve heard good things about Gundam 00 and Gundam SEED in particular, but Mobile Fighter G Gundam looks a little too cheesy for my taste. (Though apparently that was the point.) And that’s just scratching the surface! I wish I had watched these and the other recent Gundam series as they aired, but I guess I just had too much going on in my life at the time. I regret that I won’t be able to catch up; between the new and old stuff, there’s just too much. I’ll just have to pick and choose, nabbing what I can before the DVDs go out of print. I’ll likely get back into building Gundam models, too. No clue what happened to my old figures, though.

On the off chance that anyone reading this is a Gundam fan…got any recommendations of your own?

I find this highly annoying, and I regret that I’ve fallen into this trap myself; most notably with the 2007 film I Am Legend. My gripe was that the ending was completely changed from the book; not only does ruin the story, but the original ending was also where the title came from! With the new ending, the producers tried to shoehorn in the title, and it just didn’t make any sense. With the ending used, the title should’ve been I Am Legacy. (Note: the original ending was included on the DVD/BRD release of the film; it was originally scrapped because test audiences didn’t like it. Ugh.)

However, for those who had never read the book — which is going to be a majority of the audience — that complaint is not relevant.

Here’s why: a film’s merits cannot be based on the source material, because that’s a completely different work. When you’re adapting one medium to another, such as a book to a film, the differences are even wider. You don’t judge a book based on film criteria, so why on earth would the reverse apply?

Furthermore, the quality of the adaptation is almost always a matter of opinion. The creators of the film are well aware of what changes were made, as they did so deliberately. The Harry Potter films, for example, had notable alterations, but those were done for reasons specific to the film medium, such as running time or visual presentation. If you don’t like that the house elf subplot was removed, that’s your issue; it worked well in the book, but it would not have made for very dynamic storytelling in the context of a film.

On the other hand, a movie could be dead-on accurate in terms of recreating the source material…but if it’s rife with bad acting, a horrible script, poor editing, and cheesy effects, then it’s a bad film no matter how great the original work may be.

Finally, you can’t expect a movie audience to have read the book before seeing the movie anyway. In some cases (like Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings) you might have a large portion of the audience who has done so, but the film still needs to stand alone. (I’ll expound upon this in another post at some point in the future.)

The point is that people just need to lay off judging adaptations by the original work; it’s counterproductive and irrelevant.

My first experience with acting was a dumb school play called Goin’ Buggy in third grade, in which I portrayed an ant marching on Washington demanding equal rights for bugs. I’m not kidding. I don’t really count this as a true acting gig, though, as everyone in class was required to be in the play in some form.

The real deal came seven years later in high school. I auditioned to appear in student-run one act plays during my sophomore year. The plays were a side production of the school’s drama club, and I knew a few people there who convinced me that I had a shot. I was chosen to appear in two different plays — I don’t recall their titles — and my first proper acting role was that of an executioner. Isn’t that more like it? (On an amusing note, the character whose head I got to chop off was played by one of the most arrogant douchebags in school. Poetic justice, perhaps?) In the other play, I was a dimwitted prince; the part was fine, but the costume was rather uncomfortable. (Translation: we all looked like we stepped out of Robin Hood: Men in Tights.)

Rehearsals for these one act plays took up a few hours after school a few times a week; I was already used to this kind of schedule from jazz band anyway, so it worked out well. Performances were held a few times during the school day, and then there was a big evening performance of all of the plays towards the end of the semester.

Junior year, I performed in another one act play, this time an adaptation of a famous scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yep, you guessed it: we did the rabbit scene. I got to play Sir Lancelot, and the cast made it a point to wear the cheesiest costumes and use really silly props.

My final year in high school saw a much larger acting role, as well as editing, directing, and performing in a one act play myself. Let’s talk about the latter first: based on my experience with the Monty Python bit a year prior, I decided to adapt five scenes from one of my favorite comedies: Spaceballs. The scenes in question were the first appearance of Dark Helmet, the radar being jammed, the heroes entering the temple of Yogurt, Dark Helmet threatening Princess Vespa with plastic surgery, and the final wedding scene.

I transcribed them, edited where necessary (for the stage, not for content; the swearing and such was kept intact), and cast a bunch of other actors at school in the various parts. Most of the cast played more than one role, which made the whole thing a lot more fun. Aside from getting the whole thing together and directing the final product, I also appeared in the play as Dark Helmet; I know I wasn’t short enough, but I looked preposterous with that trash can on my head.

On to the “big” play. The official school drama club production that year was Noises Off, and I landed the part of Tim, a neurotic stage manager. You may have seen the film adaptation, in which Tim is played by Perfect Strangers star Mark Linn-Baker. I made it a point not to copy his performance; rather than Linn-Baker’s stressed out yet meek Tim, my portrayal was much more along the lines of an overworked grunt who’d had enough of other people’s bullshit. Luckily, the director loved it! Three of my castmates were elitist acting snobs (one was the victim of my executioner’s axe two years prior), but I just ignored them and focused on my own part.

Rehearsals were much longer and complicated this time around, since Noises Off lasted about an hour and a half, rather than the very short one act plays I was used to. Our rehearsals ran for hours after school every day, and in the week before performance, we were often there past 9:00 PM every night. Still, the play was great fun, and I also learned a lot about directing and set design. The set for Noises Off was a massive, two-floored swiveling house, and all of the cast helped to construct it.

In college, I continued acting in the spring of my freshman year in a student written and directed play called Carpe Diem. I landed the role of Brooks, a drug-addicted mental patient. To be honest, I didn’t really have to act much for the part; Brooks’ personality was much like my own, the only difference being his substance abuse. The play was a dark comedy, and even though my character handled the comic relief, he takes a serious turn halfway through. (Brooks did not appear in the second half of the play.)

This was a much bigger deal than my high school acting, because we actually got to perform off-Broadway in New York City. The trip was a wonderful experience; besides putting on four or five performances, we also toured the Juilliard School, saw a professionally produced play (The Gin Game) at the Orpheum Theater, and engaged in other acting-related pursuits.

Carpe Diem was also my last proper acting experience. (I made a few appearances in music videos my college roommate made for his film editing class, but that hardly counts.) If you’re wondering why I stopped acting beyond that play, the answer is threefold.

My freshman year of college was rather turbulent for me, both socially and academically. During the spring semester I failed my Pascal programming class, along with more than half of the other students. This was due to an extremely confusing and unfair grading system used by the professor, and we all made complaints to the department chair about it. (The professor was later diagnosed with Parkinson’s, I believe. Eesh.)

Nevertheless, my parents placed the blame for my failing grade squarely on me, with my New York City trip as the focal point. They were convinced that going on the trip meant I didn’t have a chance to prepare for my final exams…even though the cast was required to get signed approval from each of our professors and take our final exams a week in advance. My parents did not believe a word of it, and they actually told me that I was forbidden from acting again my sophomore year! I made it quite clear that the choice was not theirs to make, nor could they do anything about it if I chose to keep acting. This naturally caused some tension at home.

It turns out that my folks would get their wish, anyway, through no action of their own. As computer science and advanced mathematics weren’t really working out for me, I changed my major to graphic design halfway through my sophomore year. That spring semester, I wanted to focus on my new major as much as possible, so I refrained from acting. I fully planned on returning to the stage the following year, but the second obstacle reared its ugly head.

That ugliness was theater majors. During my sophomore year and beyond, a majority of them were the most self-righteous and arrogant pissants I’d seen. They were incredibly full of themselves because they majored in theater…at a damned state school. Not Juilliard, not the NYFA…a little state college. Many of them also came from affluent homes, so the whole rich kid stereotype also applied. (Which of course begs the question: if you’ve got that kind of money, why not go to a better college?) Anyone who was not a theater major was looked down upon and mocked by these assholes, and it became difficult for so-called “outsiders” to get parts. Rather than end up in a fistfight with some of these clowns (which very nearly happened on a few occasions), I just avoided the drama department out of disgust.

Lastly, as I moved on to more advanced art classes, a lot more of my time was taken up working on projects. The asshole drama students nonwithstanding, I could no longer afford to spend every weeknight rehearsing for plays, so that was the final torpedo that sunk the ship.

As to why I never got back into acting post-college…well, it’s yet another question of time. Instead of having classes for a few hours a day, then projects for a few more hours a day, I’m part of the working world. That means eight hours of work each day, plus travel time, meals, and so on. Getting involved in another theatrical production would eat up my evenings, and the only downtime I’d have left would be on weekends. This is unacceptable, as I need that time during the week to relax, as well as pursue my hobbies.

Performing on stage was good while it lasted. The only acting I do nowadays is acting like an idiot, which you’re well aware of from reading this blog. Zing!

First are the people who are too damned slow. I suppose you could apply that complaint to just about anyone standing in any type of line, but it still applies here. I’ve seen people page through the lists of movies in the Redbox kiosk at a rate of about one page per thirty seconds. For a normal person, this takes about three seconds.

Then there’s the people who use two kiosks at once. Some grocery stores have two Redbox kiosks side-by-side, an in an effort to offer more movies and cut down on lines. Believe it or not, I’ve seen people checking both screens at once, and these assholes get mad when you ask to use one of them!

The absolute worst, however, was the reader girl. I was returning a movie early one Saturday evening, and as expected, there was a sizable line. No worries, I can wait. Each person ahead of me took a few minutes at most, and that was fine. Then the reader girl steps up to the kiosk. Why do I call her the “reader girl”? Because she proceeded to take out her cellphone, call someone, and then read off every damned movie the kiosk contained.

She was ahead of a couple, who were in turn ahead of me. More than once during this incident did the couple turn and look at me, as if to confirm that they weren’t the only ones irritated by this. It took every bit of self control I had not to march up to the reader girl and growl “hurry the fuck up.” Eventually she got her shitty movie and left, and there were audible sighs of relief from everyone else in line.

Seriously, who does that shit?! When I use Redbox, I make it a point to either know what I want ahead of time, or get an alternate movie as soon as possible as not to inconvenience others in line. It’s not difficult, people.