Mister Jack

I absolutely despise the doomsday prepper subculture. If they kept their lunacy to themselves it would be easy enough to ignore, but no, they have to get on the internet and spread their insane theories and predictions on their facebooks or their personal blogs or what have you. Predictions, by the way, which are pretty much always based on either junk science, cherry-picked data, out-of-context quotations, or straight up fiction. This nonsense predates the internet, too. First it was nuclear war, and when that didn't come to pass they moved on to peak oil. Now that it's looking like that won't be a problem either (at least not anytime soon) they're moving on to global warming. Now look, I'm not saying global warming isn't real. It's absolutely real and it needs to be dealt with, but when you exaggerate its effects to such ludicrous proportions it does a disservice to everyone. People who were on the fence might read these tall tales and then dismiss the issue entirely, but what's worse is when people actually buy the garbage they're peddling. People ruin their lives because they believe this stuff, doing things like selling their houses or spending all of their savings. Even if they don't go that far, the fact remains that the individuals spreading this misinformation are needlessly upsetting a lot of people, and whenever they're confronted with scientific evidence that contradicts their beliefs they accuse the dissenter of being either blind, in denial, or even an enemy agent. These folks are not only completely convinced that the sky is falling, but they actually can't wait for it to do so. See, because they're soooooo smart and resourceful they'll be the only ones left when the shit hits the fan, and then when the dust settles they'll rule over the new world like kings. Give me a break. It legitimately makes me depressed when I come across this stuff, not because I actually believe it but because this kind of rampant nihilism doesn't sit well with me. It bothers me to see all these people who would rather roll over and wait for the vultures than even attempt to discuss more productive ideas. It's a cult, pure and simple, and it makes me sick.

Practically all of my shows are on hiatus right now except for Game of Thrones, so to fill in the gaps I started catching up on Bob's Burgers and The Amazing World of Gumball. I was fairly indifferent to these shows in the past because I tend to hate family sitcoms and all their cliches, but I never flat-out disliked them so I figured they'd be an okay watch while I waited for other shows to return. I've ended up with a newly discovered appreciation for both shows, and I think the reason is because they both try a different kind of family dynamic. Bob Belcher isn't a bumbling dad and he frequently has to talk down his well-meaning but naive wife, Linda. Richard Watterson is most definitely a bumbling dad, but because of that he's a stay-at-home parent while his much more intelligent and capable wife, Nicole, is the one who actually works and provides for the rest of the family. More than that, however, I think what I like about both shows is that it's not always about the family members fighting and arguing with each other. In so many other shows (coughFamilyGuycough) the family members are so hostile toward each other that you start to wonder if they even care. It's downright unpleasant to watch. While I won't say the Belchers and Wattersons never fight, more often than not the comedy isn't about pitting the family members against each other but pitting them against the rest of the world, which I find a lot funnier than watching a group of dysfunctional people tear themselves apart. It's also worth mentioning that neither show has the "perfect mom" trope that I hate so much. Linda Belcher isn't stupid or anything, but she tends to get carried away with half-baked ideas and jumps to wild conclusions with little evidence, so Bob often has to talk her back down to Earth. Nicole Watterson, while undeniably the smartest and most sane member of her family with the possible exception of her daughter, is also obsessed with winning to truly insane degrees and has one hell a temper when something annoys her, so it's not like she's put on some pedestal above the rest of the family members. She's just as crazy at the rest of them, but merely in different ways. I'm not saying either one of these shows is a masterpiece or anything, just that they made me reconsider how I feel about sitcoms. The genre isn't inherently terrible, but people have gotten lazy, complacent, and even downright cynical in how they write it. I've already seen enough broken families in the real world. I want more shows where the families are struggling together, not struggling to stay together.

"You nearly died in that dungeon there! You had us all worried! By the way, I'm taking half of your money for my doctor's fees." Well I might as well just reset the game then, don't you think? I wasn't aware that there was a health care system that measures out your entire net worth before calculating hospital bills.

Xenoblade just does so many things right. I was beaten once by a boss earlier, and there was a pretty lengthy cutscene before that, so after I died I expected I was going to have to go back and trigger the cutscene, then pause the game, skip it, and wait for the boss fight to load. Not a huge inconvenience but meh. However, when I respawned I was just a short walk away from the boss, who was already standing there waiting for me. He even taunted me when I went back to fight him again ("Back for more, eh?!"). It's so much better this way.

I loved New Order so more of the same is fine by me. The only reason I haven't already bought it is because I've just been too busy dealing with my dad's estate. Hopefully I can get around to it soon.

You know, I really hate it when movies (usually adaptations of an existing work) are written to have a cliffhanger ending when there isn't already a sequel in the works. That's a pretty big assumption to be making, and if the movie bombs because it's a piece of shit then you're left with an awkward, incomplete mess that maybe could have been better if they weren't saving the good stuff for a sequel that will never happen.

I don't even need to read the article. Today is gonna be a good day.

Who cares. You're still gonna die because you eat gluten.

I don't like social media in general. I don't even have a facebook, so I really resent Google trying to strong-arm me into joining Google+.

Can we embed vines on this forum?

Everyone who owns an Apple Watch.

http://attackofthefanboy.com/news/gta-v-pc-mods-blocked-eula-players-banned-even-single-player-mods/ You know, I totally saw this coming months before the PC version ever came out but nobody believed me when I said Rockstar wouldn't allow modding and now look where we are.

I think people are excited because it's NOT Lucas, which is pretty pathetic when you think about it. "Hooray! A new movie in the franchise that has nothing to do with the original creator!" You know you fucked up bad when this is the general attitude.

I turned the notification light on my phone off entirely because it would go off for every little thing, even steam messages, when I only wanted it to go off for voice mails and text messages.

Even if the Edge was the same price I just couldn't do it. I'm pretty fastidious about the design of my devices and I just know that the asymmetry on the edge would drive me insane. It's a dumb reason, but even if I wasn't hung up on that I doubt the curved edge is really worth it anyway so it's just as well.

Have you tried it recently? I can't even add a video to my favorites anymore without making a Google+ page and it's fucking horseshit.

Bottom left under the Amazon ads.

So I think I'm in the market for a new phone. I was fairly happy with my S3, considering its age, so I'm thinking of sticking with the Galaxy and just going for the S6. Has anyone here used one? Or heard anything about it?

What exactly would happen if she won that case?

God damn it, Google, I DON'T WANT A GOOGLE PLUS PROFILE! FUCK OFF!

Why did nobody find it odd that Bruce lost all his stock on the same day Bane pulled a heist on the Gotham Stock Exchange.

Actually that's another thing that bothered me but I had forgotten it until now. Iron Man 3 gave you the impression that Tony was facing a new kind of foe who fought not for money, but a radical ideology. But then it turns out that no, it's another greedy CEO. Again.

If you have a New 3DS then Xenoblade is absolutely mandatory. If you don't, then try Bravely Default. I also really liked Rune Factory 4 but I get the feeling that sort of game won't appeal to everyone.

See, I might accept that reasoning if I believed that they'd planned from the beginning to have Killian be a "fake" Mandarin who was using the identity of the "real" one, but I don't. I think they made that up after the fact to cover their asses when it got such a polarizing reaction. Even then I could let it go if I thought the real Mandarin would be the villain in a future Marvel movie, but I don't see that happening either. I mean, where is there even any room for him anymore? Marvel announced all their films for pretty much the rest of the decade and I don't remember seeing Iron Man 4 on that list.