GIRLS ONLY, NO BOYS ALLOWED

Saw this on Youtube today.  Disney's The Story Of Menstruation.  There were a few comments that said something along the lines of, "I remember seeing stuff like this in school, they had a special class for girls and they'd show us this video/a video like this, the boys would go somewhere else."

There are a few reasons this video annoyed me.  First, the description calling this a banned cartoon.  This was never a banned cartoon.  I hate watching old cartoons on Youtube and just about every one is "banned," or claimed to be.  People just spread misinformation about cartoons being banned, because calling it banned generates more hits (or they just assume that any given cartoon must have been banned, because OMG LADY PARTS IN AN EDUCATIONAL CARTOON?  NOOOOOO!!)  Another reason it annoyed me is that the way the lady narrating pronounces "maturing" is so weird.  Mahtooooring.  The hell.

But the main reason I am annoyed at it is because of those comments, about how girls would have to watch it and the boys would be sent out.  Which isn't directly annoyance at the cartoon, more annoyance at how stuff like that has been educated.  Why can't boys learn how menstruation works, too?  I know most of that sort of stuff happened in Ye Olden Days Of Sexism, but I've heard of it happening in Ye Modern "Post-Sexism" Days* too.  I've met so many guys who have absolutely no knowledge of what menstruation is or why/how it happens.  Once somebody expressed amazement that women get cramps during their period.  Or that menstrual cycles affect hormones and shit even when we aren't bleeding, or that periods may not always be predictable and regular, or that being on your period doesn't automatically make you a RAGING BITCH RAAAAAAAR.  Dudes.  You are thinking PMS.  It stands for premenstrual syndrome.  As in, it happens BEFORE your period, and ends when your period starts.  So if you claim that any lady who acts irritable when you're being a douche "must be on the rag!" then you sound like a complete idiot.  Also, PMS isn't just "ladies hulk out!"  There are a lot of symptoms (and it's not universal either, there are plenty of women who don't get PMS at all) and they can include breast tenderness, clumsiness, headache, and any of these other symptoms here.
*Post-sexism: not actually a thing.

So why can't guys sit in on this video too?  It's not some big secret that ladies sometimes bleed from the crotchal area.  Most women do.  Most guys realize that most women do.  It's pretty hard to get through life without learning this little fact.  So why don't people want to teach boys as well as girls how and why it happens, and what to expect?  There's nothing wrong with learning about stuff that doesn't directly affect you.  And it's a good thing to learn about stuff that directly affects half the people you interact with.  Also, it helps you not look like a fucking moron when I mention a basic fact of life and you are utterly confused because "Durr, what does your period have to do with stomach cramps?"

And for the record, when I give you a death glare and/or punch you for making a PMS joke, it's not proof that I've got PMS.  It's proof that you've successfully pissed me off, because PMS jokes are one of my pet peeves.  How come every time a woman is annoyed or angry it's proof that she's somehow suffering from PMS, even while she's menstruating or has just finished a period?  What, men can get pissed off for the sake of being pissed off but whenever a woman is pissed it's because of hormones?  Fuck you.

Rise of the Guardians

Yeah, I watched that tonight.  Rise of the Guardians was actually somewhat better than I was expecting.  I vaguely remember seeing the trailer in theatres.  I don't remember my exact reaction, but I remember being pretty unimpressed and convinced that it was a must-miss.  I gave in today after a few friends recommended it, and I was pleasantly surprised.  It wasn't mind-blowingly amazing, but it was okay.  And that's way better than I thought it would be.

I'm not gonna go into any detail explaining the plot here, by the way.  I can't be bothered, really.  It was a good plot, so there's no fun to be had in really mocking it, but it wasn't an incredible plot so there's not a lot of gushing I could do either.  So if you're curious, either watch the movie yourself, look it up on Wikipedia or resign yourself to a life of never knowing.  I really don't care.  This isn't a review, all I'm doing is rambling about a few of the reactions I had during the movie.

First off: the character designs.  Some of them were really cool.  Santa was awesome.  The Tooth Fairy was really neat as well.  I loved Santa's Naughty and Nice arm tattoos, and his very Russian-badass portrayal.  His outfits were way cooler than the traditional red-with-white-trim santa suit -- the red-with-black-trim coat was quite striking, actually -- and I liked how he wasn't really fat, just big.  It was an interesting portrayal of a very classic, iconic character.  The Tooth Fairy was adorable, really birdlike and enthusiastic, and she had just the prettiest eyes.  Her little fairy helpers were cute too!

I didn't realize until after the movie was over and I was discussing it with my sister exactly how offensive the Easter Bunny was.  During the movie all I thought was "Oh, he's....not very interesting.  Kind of boring, really."  And then later on I'm like, "Holy shit, was that racist?  Or something?  Is there a world like racist that refers to countries and cultures rather than race, or does it all fall under racism?"  But yeah, it was something, all right.  The Easter Bunny had an Australian accent, and tribal tattoos or something, and, you know, he's a rabbit.  That super-invasive species that ruined everything in Australia and is still causing hella problems.  Man, that was a bad choice, Dreamworks.  Shame on you.  Think better next time.

Jack Frost's design was...ehhhh?  Overall I guess I liked it -- I mean, I liked his face and his staff and mostly I liked his movements, even if they weren't always as creative as I would have liked.  But his outfit...ugh.  So boring.  He starts out with an interesting enough outfit, right in the beginning -- it's like a cloak that reflects light rather interestingly in the moonlight, and reminded me of frost.  Clever!  But then fast forward a few hundred years and he's running around in...a hoodie.  Okay, fine, a hoodie with frost on it, but still.  How dull can you get?  That's part of the reason I never liked the trailer, I think, the character just looked too bland to be interesting, and his outfit was too modern and casual to make any impression about his personality.

And the Boogeyman, or Pitch Black.  Wait that's a terrible name, I'll just stick with Boogeyman.  His character design was baaaaaaad.  Like, really bad.  Well, more like really boring, but for a villain that's baaaaaaad.  Come on! The guy is darkness itself, he moves through shadows and controls nightmares -- you could have had so much fun with that!  Like the evil lady in Sinbad, that was a kind of dull movie but she was just so cool, her movements and actions and everything, it was just wow, you know?  You could have channeled some of that for the boogeyman here.  His body could have shifted with the shadows, changing shape and size, slipping away one minute then towering above everyone the next.  Or he could have stayed perfectly still most of the time and the scenery would move around him, how neat would that look?  And even without the change in movements, he looks so dull.  Just a plain black robe, plain black hair, nothing distinctive about him.  Why not clad him in shadows, so his robe melts into the scenery around him, or make his facial features subtly change depending on who he's talking to and what he wants?  He could have been made so much more creepy than he turned out to be.  I find that usually it's the villain that makes a film for me, and the Boogeyman being such a let-down was really part of why I found Rise of the Guardians a little lacking.

Another thing that bugged me during the film was how the children's belief in the Guardians worked.  As a kid I never really believed in Santa or the Tooth Fairy or anything, and if I ever did it would have been when I was very young, too young to remember.  But it seems to me that a child who really believed wouldn't immediately dismiss those beliefs as soon as one little thing happened.  One night of teeth not being picked up led to the Tooth Fairy immediately losing her powers -- what?  Wouldn't the kids' initial reaction be more "What, why didn't she come, what happened, why?" rather than "Oh, no quarter, guess she was never real!"  Or no eggs in an egghunt, or no presents at Christmas.  Either the non-believing parents would have put out at least a few eggs or presents of their own, so the kids wouldn't immediately lose faith, or the parents would realize that eggs and presents and tooth money shows up without fail and thus the Guardians are kind of undeniably real.  Also, a single night of bad dreams led to children everywhere losing all their faith in the Guardians?  My god, what sort of idyllic fantasy world is this?  Oh no, I had a nightmare last night!  Time for an existential crisis.  IS THERE NO GOD?!?!?!

And finally, the barefoot thing.  Jack Frost is barefoot through the whole movie, even in the parts that show his life as a normal human.  At one point some kids run outside in the middle of the night, stopping to grab coats and hats but for some reason not shoes -- the one thing you really, really need when you're running out into the snow.  What is the deal?  Movie, why do you not understand cold?  Well, maybe not.  Early on it shows kids celebrating a "snow day" when there's maybe a light sprinkling of snow -- not even enough to cover the grass!  If a city thinks that less than an inch of snow is significant enough to shut down schools, why would the kids have sleds?  They clearly don't get enough snow to use them. You are weird, movie.  All of this?  This is why you are only pretty good instead of awesome.  Try better next time, okay?

Dungeons and Dragons

So I'm pumped! I've been wanting to get into D&D for ages, but I haven't had much luck finding people to start playing with, I lucked out and got to go to one game of Pathfinder in December, but the DM left shortly after that and the group hasn't gotten together since. I was sadface.

The saddest sadface!

But I lucked out again the other day! A friend of mine recently realized how totally awesome D&D sounds, so she called me up and we decided to give it a shot! She's got a few friends who are also interested in trying it out, and there's plenty of space at my house to get together for a session.

I admit I'm somewhat apprehensive, since I don't actually know any of the kids except for Sam, we're all completely new to the game with my one Pathfinder session months ago being the most experience any of us have, and there is the potential awkwardness of me being the oldest person at 23 in a group of junior high students, at least until May when a friend is planning to move here and join in. But Sam at least is pretty mature for her age, and I trust that her friends are cool, so I'm sure we'll get along well. After all, there are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them, right? D&D is a great experience for anyone, does it matter how old someone is when they stand loyally by your side through thick and thin, facing mighty foes and challenging the forces of evil in a glorious quest to save the world and bring honour to your family name?  

Let me rephrase: when they don't immediately stab you in the back during your quest for loot?

Anyway. DnD is gonna be lots of fun, I'm sure! I bought my first set of dice the other day and ordered a physical copy of the Player's Handbook off Amazon, and I'm making a badass dwarven fighter character now. The character sheet is a little complicated and looks pretty intimidating at first glance, but a bit of Googling helped me find some really useful guides on building characters and filling out the sheet (that first link is the one I found to be the best), as well as background information on dwarves to help me with the roleplaying aspect. Add in some pdf copies of the core books and an online dice roller for the players who haven't got their own dice yet, and we're set! I'm really looking forward to this game.  You know, as soon as we figure out how to play it.

This Just In, Some People Care About The Oscars

So apparently watching the Oscars is a thing that people do, go figure.  I didn't watch it, because seriously, it is the Oscars, who gives a fuck.  But apparently a whole bunch of people on my Facebook newsfeed did!  And are talking about somebody tripped or something and the host made some sexist or racist jokes?

The host thing is annoying, to me.  Not that he made the jokes, not really.  But like three or four people on my newsfeed are all up in arms because those damn feminists are making a big deal out of it because geez, it's only a joke, calm down, why are you wasting your time talking about jokes some dude made when there is real oppression to fight and actually hurting people to deal with, GEEEEEEZ.

Well, fuck off.  I don't know what jokes this guy made, but if somebody was offended by it then they have the right to express that.  If somebody thought what he said was problematic, they have a right to talk about how and why that is.  And the fact that there are bigger problems in the world doesn't mean that everybody has to ignore the smaller day to day injustices that they face, and telling someone that they shouldn't talk about something that upsets them because, say, some Muslima has it worse.  Guess what, people don't have to devote every second of every day fighting only the very worst oppression in the world until it's all gone before they can start paying attention to the small acts of oppression that happen to them every day and affects their life whether or not people on the outside can see it.  Different people have different priorities, and those priorities are always in flux.  Objecting to a rape joke today doesn't mean that they weren't advocating for a women's shelter yesterday or aren't picketing for a union tomorrow.  And if you really have a problem with how people obsess over what you consider to be minor, ridiculous things instead of the big problems, then actually do something about those problems.  Write letters and stage protests and volunteer and prove that you think that it's important to fix them, rather than just using big problems you don't really care about as an excuse to silence people who are fighting different problems that you also don't care about.

Also, is "somebody fell down on camera" really such a big deal that everybody on my news feed has to make jokes about it?  Dang, no wonder I don't watch the Oscars if that's considered to be a high point.

Super 8

I just finished watching Steven Spielberg and J. J. Abram's movie Super 8 with my dad and brother.  I saw the trailer for it before it came out in theatres a year or two ago and went, "Oh, that looks really neat, I should check it out!" then completely forgot about it until my brother put it on tonight.

I'm not actually sure if I liked it much or not.  It started off pretty strong, I was having fun with the kids and their movie, and the whole witnessing a freaky train crash thing was cool, if a little excessive -- seriously, what was with the Michael Bay explosions there?  That train was crashing and exploding for like, five minutes.  It stopped being awesome and started being just awkwardly hilarious less than halfway through the explosion.  But the child actors were all pretty good, and it was a fun watch for the most part.

But the movie sort of lost steam as it went on.  It's still good overall, but it isn't consistently awesome.  The really strong beginning became a decent middle and a kind-of-eh end.  I went from being really interested and entertained, to kind of disappointed and only watching to see if it really would be as predictable as it seemed.  I'd say I'm trying to be vague in order to avoid spoilers, but I honestly can't think of any spoilers for this movie.  Everything just starts running in a straight, generic alien-invasion-movie line.  Apparently the movie was originally two different movies, one a movie about a bunch of kids making their own movie in the 70's and the other just, you know, it's an alien invasion movie.  Summer blockbuster stuff.  But they were worried that the first one wouldn't attract enough of an audience, so they combined them.  Which is kind of really disappointing, because the blockbuster-alien-invasion part of the movie is really weak in comparison to the kids-making-a-movie-then-stuff-happens part.  It's just, oh look it's an alien, he crashed on Earth and the military held him captive and torture-experimented on him and now he hates humanity and he's on the rampage.  How inspired.  I've never seen that a million times before.  Whereas a bunch of kids making an adorkable zombie movie in the 70's, that's cute!  I really haven't seen that movie before, no sarcasm this time.  And stuff is happening around them and they gotta find out what's up and it's a totally nostalgic adventure!  I'd watch the shit out of that.

The movie passes the Bechdel test, but only barely.  There's only one actually important female character, and that's Alice who goes missing in the middle of the movie and the rest of it's about rescuing her from the alien so she's not in a lot of the movie, but instead is off being the damsel in distress.  There's a short scene where one of the kid's mom argues with his sister over how she's not allowed to wear that outfit to school, missy!  Then the sister comes back later to use her sexy sex appeal to convince a dude to do the main kids a favour. Why can't she do the favour instead of just convincing somebody else through her feminine wiles?  Hey, who'd want to watch a girl drive the car, let's just add another male character instead!  And both of the two main characters, Joe and Alice, have missing moms, more female characters that have conveniently vanished from the story so we can focus on the all-important male characters instead.  Joe's missing mom is kind of plot-related in that she died because she was covering Alice's dad's shift and there was an accident.  Alice's mom is just not around, her dad saying she "left" in one scene but the movie never really pays attention to it.  So most of the movie is about a bunch of guys running around.  I know there are people out there who'd get all bent out of shape that I would ever have a problem about a movie being mostly guys with just a few female characters, because GEEZ NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO CATER TO YOU FUCKING FEMINISTS 24/7 WHO CARES IF GUYS HAVE ROLES IN MOVIES WHAT I GUESS YOU WANT TO BAN ANYONE WITH A DICK FROM EVER SHOWING THEIR FACE IN HOLLYWOOD IS THAT IT BITCH?!!?!?!!!?!!!1

No, that's not it.  I wouldn't have a problem with a movie being mostly guys with one or two female characters, or even no female characters -- there are lots of spectacular movies with an all-male cast.  But seriously, every movie is about a bunch of guys running around with maybe a couple of love interests or token chicks.  Movies are about dudes.  Movies about women never get made unless they're romances or something, in which case they're still usually about dudes, just from another perspective.  What would change in this movie if say, the arsonist kid was another chick? Or if the mostly-ignored sister Jen was the one who the kids went to for actual help and got more character development instead of just being "the sexy plot device to trick a guy"?  Hell, let's look at other movies, not just this one.  What if one or two of the Ghostbusters were women?  Why were there so few women in the Star Wars movies?  Why did it take Pixar thirteen films before getting around to a female protagonist?  Think about it.  Women account for fifty percent of the population.  Yet in 2009, women only recieved 33% of speaking roles.  Isn't that a little messed up?

Anyway, feminist rambling aside, I'd probably recommend this movie, I guess.  It's charming when it's not being a generic summer blockbuster, and when it is doing the generic summer blockbuster part it's doing it well enough.  The monster looks pretty neat, there are big explosions to keep you reasonably entertained despite the lack of twists or surprises, and the child actors are surprisingly talented.  Just don't let the movie fool you into raising your expectations during the really good parts, and you'll like it fine.

How Not To Give Up A Dog

My dad sent me a post on Facebook today, it was somebody trying to find a home for a dog.  Dad sends me these whenever he finds them.  Not because he knows I'm looking for a dog, but because he knows I desperately want a dog but can't have one, and he likes to taunt me.

Anyway, this one stuck out at me.  The person who owned the dog, a sweet friendly black lab, was moving and couldn't take the dog with them, and according to the story in the post, they were gonna put the thing down because they didn't know what else to do with it until a friend was all "No, don't do that, I'll hang onto it for now and find a new owner."  The post has been taken down now, so I can't find a photo of the dog or give the exact details, but I think someone agreed to take the dog in or bring it to somebody they know looking for a dog.

The thing that struck me about the story was that the owner's first reaction was to have the dog put down.  Yeah yeah, the story went on about how sad they would be to do it because he was such a good dog blah blah blah, but still.  First reaction is kill the dog.  Not a shelter?  Really?  Because there's a bunch of shelters.  There's even a normal and a no-kill shelter in town, so seriously, there's absolutely no reason to go "I can't keep my dog?  Welp, better whip out the ol' shotgun!"  Old Yeller never had rabies, the family was just moving and didn't want to bother driving to a shelter.  Jeez people, when you get an animal you're making a commitment.  It's like getting married.  If your marriage is falling apart, you don't have your spouse put down, you get a divorce.  If you can't keep your dog, you don't have the dog put down, you find a new home for it.  Putting an animal down is a last-ditch option, not your first response to an inconvenient situation.  What is wrong with you.

I never read actually Old Yeller. I read Shiloh though, that one was really good.

Subeta

As far as I can tell, Subeta is just a knockoff of Neopets.  Like completely.  Every step of the tutorial walkthrough was exactly the same as stuff you'd do on Neopets.  Anyway, I found it because I was fucking around online and got linked to a forum discussion about...something, I can't remember what, on this website Subeta.  I made an account because the little avatars were pretty cute, but mostly because I was bored with nothing better to do and the site promised games somewhere and possibly interesting conversations in the forums.

I never got around to playing any games on it, though.  I was in the middle of a walkthrough and doing some quests, where the NPC was looking for some random items and I had to find them in the shops.  I did a few before I realized that doing shit on this website was worse than doing nothing at all and closed the window.  The fetch-quests were annoying, but it was just really irritating to do a shop search and find something that sells for like five hundred coins or whatever in the regular shop, and see literally all of the user-owned stores selling it for over ten thousand.  Apparently everybody on that site is a greedy idiot, so there isn't even any point in going on the forums.

Well done, Subeta.  You are a direct ripoff of a site that came out in the nineties, and ten minutes of dicking around in your tutorial walkthrough showed me that a.) nothing on your website was original enough to be worth dicking around with in the first place, and b.) you are full of terrible people who overcharge basic crap to a hilarious degree and think the other users are actually dumb enough to buy it!  Good job selling the site to newbies, Subeta!  I'm off to delete my browser history for the past hour so I can forget about you completely and never come back.

Happy Valentine's Day!

To all three or four of my dear readers, will you be mine?

Why I Won't Rant About The Big Bang Theory

I wrote a ridiculously long post complaining about the most recent episode of The Big Bang Theory.  I had a big long multi-paragraph rant on how irritating the characters have become and how the romantic pairings are awful and filled with misery and how the jokes are old and un-funny (Howard's mom is fat!  Ha!  Sheldon is a sexist douche!  Ha! Ha!  Leonard is clingy and smothering and his relationship with Penny will destroy them both!  HA!).  Then I realized that obsessing about the show that I watch when I want to turn my brain off is doing it wrong.  Also, this show has really gone on for too long, it needs to end already.  TV shows are not meant to go on indefinitely.  Half of the problems I had with the most recent episode wouldn't have been a problem in the first season before the show had so much history and character development to trip over.

Anyway, I deleted that ridiculously long post, because I realized that it's stupid to try to analyze the characters on a sitcom.  No sitcom character can ever be anything less than awful, because early in the show's run awful characters are more fun to watch, and late in the show's run everyone has been Flandarized to hell and they're tripping over so much history and backstory nearly everything they do means they're being a dick.  Like Leonard, pulling exactly the same thing on Penny as Stephanie pulled on him in season two, and he doesn't seem to remember at all how uncomfortable that made him -- even saying something along the lines of "If you don't want her to move in why don't you just tell her that" to Sheldon, completely forgetting what a useless wad he was in that episode and how he even tried to beg Penny into telling Stephanie to back off for him.  Without that history, Leonard's behaviour is naive and clingy, but not that bad.  With that history, he is a complete tool.

Oh jeez, here I go ranting again.  This is a hard habit to break, let me tell you.  But I really should, because seriously, I'm watching this crap because I want something stupid and funny to make me laugh and to stop me thinking for twenty minutes.  If I then spend forty minutes writing a rant, and then another fifteen minutes on a half-rant about not ranting after that?  It is clearly not doing it's job.  Maybe I should just watch The Walking Dead instead, at least that show is fun to hate.

Oh my god Andrea, can you get any more awful.

Welcome NL Blogroll readers!

A few days ago (I am really bad at getting to stuff on time!) my blog was added to the NL Blogroll.  Thank you guys for adding me, and welcome any readers who found my blog through there!