The Pebble Smartwatch, the Martian Smartwatch, and now the Galaxy Gear. These three and many more have started latest arms race in technology, the race to be THE smartwatch that everyone wants to have. In other words its the race to be the iPhone of watches (that is of course the iPhone before android phones started popping up and taking up the larger slice of smartphone pie). Thing is, none of these watches in the slightest have grabbed my attention. Right now, the products that have been displayed, I just don't see the innovation I'm looking for. These watches offer nothing more than my smartphone does, in fact they offer less. Its cool that they're wearable, but they could be more, and in fact there is something out there that gets me excited about the aspect of such wearable tech, but as of right now, it's nothing more than a patent. Maybe you've seen it before, maybe not, regardless, take a look:
There is more to the patent than that which mostly just deals with explaining the continuous flexible display (which is a large reason my interest is piqued, but I'll get to that soon).
Let me first get something out of the way. I do not blindly follow and love everything apple does. Far from it, I'll criticize and I'll mock the company and the man that made it a household name. But when push comes to shove, I can see the good things that have come from the company. My first mp3 player was an iPod, and when I want to burn a cd I use iTunes. The company has a place in my life, but do I feel the need to own an iPhone? Nope, the price and lack of features can not justify me throwing away my money like that. It may not be the best phone out there, but my Galaxy S3 does the job just fine and I can't complain about it.
So what makes the iWatch different? Just look at that patent. Nothing is offering bendible screens like that yet? And its seamless all the way around your wrist? Seriously? That fact right there opens it up to one of the coolest fashion accessories I could imagine. Picture an app on the iWatch that displays a visualizer similar to that which you see in iTunes or the 360 and PS3 visualizers, and you can see how you have a bracelet that's constantly in motion and displaying trippy fun images. It seems perfect for raves and parties. Peacocking at its geekiest really, but in a totally kickass way. All that coupled with the fact that they plan for the watch to charge on kinetic energy (energy from motion like that when you swing your arms while you walk), and a solar charger: ideally the thing could stay on without ever having to be recharged. If you allow this to pair with any type of bluetooth speakers and you have yourself a handy (wristy?) little fashionable device. I'll write more on this later, but the fact is, the iWatch excites me, its the first apple product I've looked forward to since I can't even remember when.
Just remembered this stop motion animation I created last year, and uploaded a while ago as well. Thought this might be a good place to host it as well:
I feel very confident in this, the only issue I had is that I'm not so sold on my own idea that the Link of Majora's Mask is the same Link in Twilight Princess. Yet this needs to be the case, or else the shared happening of Agahnim between both timeline's at the same time (the split timeline is absolutely real if you ask me) wouldn't occur at the same time. I suppose its possible that Link's Awakening could occur after Phantom Hourglass, but the Link of MM would still need to be the Link in TP for the times to align in regard to Agahnim. Anyways, read, enjoy, tell me what you think:
Alright, I'd consider this the first real fun and interesting read to whoever stumbles across this blog. I should preface this by stating the following facts, this site is called the blog of the geedork because I feel there are a lot of qualities that make me both a geek and a dork. One of such qualities is that, after over a decade, I'm still a fan of the pokemon series. I don't play the series quite as much as I used to, and very rarely have caught any episodes of the series anymore. But I still have fond memories, and the series will never be completely gone from my life. So without further ado, I bring you the meat of this post, the following things are controversies that have occurred around the pokemon series over the years. I actually posted this not long ago on a forum I frequent, but I feel that a place like this could make a great permanent home for this post:
Gambling
Oh no, the pokemon card game is like any series of cards you collect, each pack is random, so you don't know what you'll get, but this is pokemon! Therefore they are encouraging kids to keep spending money in a gamble to get the pokemon card they want. Indeed this was the thought process behind a parents' group that attempted to sue Nintendo and Wizards of the Coast (manufacturer of the card game). In fact, in the European release of the Platinum game, the gambling corner still has the slot machines, but they are non playable, unlike all other international versions of the game and the games before it.
Satan is your leader
Indeed, some fundamentalist Christian groups have accused Pokémon as being linked to Satanism. For a list of very ridiculous reasons including the fact that pokemon evolve, and that some are of the psychic type, but perhaps the funniest piece of evidence is the fact that part of the pokerap (song at the end of the first season of pokemon) when played backwards sounded like it was saying "I Love Satan." Check the vid below to hear for yourself. It actually kinda does, but like most all backmasking "discoveries, this is most definitely on accident.
Thats my likeness your parodying and ruining
(I can see it, do you? :roll:)
The story is this: In November 2000, Uri Geller, a psychic
who claims to be able to bend spoons, tried to sue Nintendo for $100 million US, claiming that Kadabra, known as Yungerer in Japan, was an unauthorized parody of himself. Besides Kadabra's use of bent spoons to enhance its Psychic powers, the katakana for its name, ユンゲラー, is visually similar to the transliteration of his own name into Japanese (ユリゲラー). He claimed: "Nintendo turned me into an evil, occult Pokémon character. Nintendo stole my identity by using my name and my signature image." The lawsuit was thrown out, but since 2003, the pokemon never appeared on a card again.
Racist! Pokemon is Racist!
This pokemon is Jynx as it appeared when the game first launched:
This is Jynx as it appears now:
The story is that Carole Boston Weatherford, a cultural critic, claimed that Jynx, which had recently appeared in an episode of the show Holiday Hi-Jynx, was a negative racial stereotype of African-Americans. She chiefly compared Jynx to the racist characters in Little Black Sambo, and further compared Jynx to Mr. Popo of the Dragonball franchise, a character who is also potentially offensive in his design. This episode was then banned from international airing, and the change you see above then took place in all releases of the games and the anime following the complaint. Short appearances of the character in the anime were cut from international broadcast, but I believe it was dubbed back in after they recolored her to a purple face rather than black face. Most interesting though is the belief that some fans hold that Jynx was never racist to begin with, but rather Jynx is more likely inspired by ganguro, a Japanese fashion where girls tan heavily, bleach their hair, and apply large amounts of makeup, instead of a black stereotype. Most people who support this theory base it on Jynx's long, straight, blonde hair, a common attribute of ganguro fashion.
[b]Pokemon is converting our Muslim children![/b]
Some outspoken, fundamentalist Muslims claimed that Pokémon is a Jewish conspiracy that is intended to brainwash Muslim children to make them renounce their faith. These same groups claimed that the word "Pokémon" is a phrase that means "I am Jewish", with the claimers and their followers generally unaware of the franchise's Japanese origin. The "Evolution vs. Creationism" conflict was also commonly brought up. In 2001, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, who is the highest religious authority in the kingdom, issued a fatwā banning the Pokémon franchise, claiming it encourages gambling and promotes Zionism. Despite the initial banning, which quickly wiped away Pokémon merchandise, especially the card game, from markets in Saudi Arabia, Pokémon video games quickly returned to be sold normally, but under much less demand from local consumers.
Kids can't handle the stuff they put in the original anime
Oh yes, 4Kids (original dubbing company behind the series in America) was scared of controversy in the show, so some of the stupidest, mundane footage was cut out of the series (in addition to the Jynx clips), often this had to do with violence such as the following:
Misty slaps Ash after he tells her that he's okay, presumably because of his apparent lack of care for Pikachu. Misty hits Brock with a log because he says "to be continued..." rather than beginning the episode. A Carvanha (a fish pokemon) hits Ash in the back of the head.
but then there are instances like the following that were banned with probably good reason... warning, this seriously is disturbing:
which brings me to the first episode to be banned in its entirety in America: Beauty and the Beach
In this episode, the female characters all enter a beauty contest. Team Rocket also enters, with James donning a suit with inflatable breasts. One scene of the episode involved James showing off his artificial cleavage for humorous effect, taunting Misty by saying, "Maybe when you're older, you'll have a chest like this!". In one scene, he puffs up his breasts to over twice their original size.
The episode did later air in America being promoted as a lost episode, but, it was heavily edited, and there were no scenes involving James and his inflatable breasts, to my understanding the lost episode has not aired again since its first airing.
this brings us to the second episode to be banned in its entirety in America: The Legend of Dratini
This is again an example of 4Kids overreacting to violence in the anime, but this time it was the threat of violence rather than the actual act. Though perhaps you can understand the merit behind the banning of this episode. It was banned because guns are repeatedly pointed at people threateningly at several points in this episode, including at the children Ash and his friends, and warning shots are fired.
This episode was never edited for a stateside release, and thus there lies a huge continuity issue within the show, as Ash caught a ton of the pokemon Tauros here (if you ever watched the show, its pretty rare to see him catch a pokemon to begin with, so for one to exist where he catches a lot but not air is kind of a big deal), thus leading to a lot of confusion later on when he uses the pokemon to fight in battles.
The only episode banned everywhere
This is not what you're thinking if you know pokemon history, that episode did air in Japan (and I will get to it in a little bit), this one did not. The episode was titled "Yureru Shima no Tatakai! Dojoach VS Namazun!!", most commonly translated as "Battle of the Quaking Island! Barboach VS Whiscash!!" The episode was originally set to air in Japan on November 4, 2004, but was skipped due to the episode's similarities to the Chūetsu earthquake on October 23, 2004. The episode was later postponed, but was skipped in rotation order and eventually discontinued. While most of the other episodes were either not dubbed for English-language release or taken out of English-language syndication rotations, this episode of Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation was the first episode to be banned inside Japan prior to its first scheduled airing.
Syndicated episode banned in America post 9/11
These episodes had aired in America, but they were taken out of syndication after September 11th. Two of them were just banned because of the names of the episodes and nothing more: The Tower of Terror and A Scare in the Air. The third episode was banned based on content where a giant pokemon called Tentacruel was seen attacking a city including large skyscrapers. The ban on these episodes have since been lifted.
Pokemon are Nazis (apparently in addition to being Jewish)
Members of the Jewish community accused Nintendo of using an offensive image in the Japanese version of the trading card game on a card:
Is that red thing a swastika?? No... but thats what people believed and it certainly does look like it. But if you know the history of the symbol, you know what it really is, first of all this one faces left and is not angled, knowing that, you will know that this is really a Manji, the Japanese name for a Buddhist and Hindu symbol, 卍, usually representative of admirable qualities such as peace or intelligence or strength, depending on clockwise or counter-clockwise direction of the arms. Regardless, the card was banned, and never seen in any cards after.
In the Diamond and Pearl games, the pokemon Registeel appears like this:
However, in the European version of the game and all game releases since, the pokemon appears like this:
Of course you can probably understand why the change was made, just interesting they ever had him in that pose to begin with.
Now the two most serious controversies related to pokemon: Pokemon killed two children
In 1999, as a promotion for Mewtwo Strikes Back, the first film in the franchise, Burger King released a series of promotional toys in handheld Poké Balls with their Kids' Meals. Not long after these toys hit the fast food chain, 2 young toddlers suffocated (in different instances but from the same exact situation) when they covered their mouth and nose with half the pokeball cutting off oxygen from the children, and they died. Burger King recalled all the toys initially and later rereleased them without the pokeball.
Finally, the most infamous pokemon controversy to date: Anime causes seizures, many many seizures
"Dennō Senshi Porygon", literally "Computer Soldier Porygon", although most commonly translated as "Electric Soldier Porygon", aired in Japan on December 16, 1997 at 6:30 PM Japan Standard Time. 20 minutes into the episode, there is a scene in which Pikachu stops some vaccine missiles with its Thunderbolt attack, resulting in a huge explosion that flashes red and blue lights. Although there were similar parts in the episode with red and blue flashes, an anime technique called "paka paka" made this scene extremely intense, for these flashes were extremely bright strobe lights, with blinks at a rate of about 12 Hz for approximately 4 seconds in almost fullscreen, and then for 2 seconds outright fullscreen. At this point, viewers started to complain of blurred vision, headaches, dizziness and nausea. A few people even had seizures, blindness, convulsions, and lost consciousness, Japan's Fire Defense Agency reported that a total of 685 viewers, 310 boys and 375 girls, were taken to hospitals by ambulances. Although many victims recovered during the ambulance trip, more than 150 of them were admitted to hospitals. Two people remained hospitalized for over 2 weeks. Some other people had seizures when parts of the scene were rebroadcast during news reports on the seizures. Only a small fraction of the 685 children treated were diagnosed with photosensitive epilepsy.
After the airing of "Dennō Senshi Porygon", the Pokémon anime went into a four month hiatus until it returned in April 1998. The episode was never aired again,making its original broadcast, its only broadcast ever. Scientists believe that the flashing lights triggered photosensitive seizures in which visual stimuli such as flashing lights can cause altered consciousness. Although approximately 1 in 4,000 people are susceptible to these types of seizures, the number of people affected by this Pokémon episode was unprecedented.
So there you have it, a list of the biggest controversies surrounding pokemon. Most of them preposterous, but make for great discussions. A lot of this truly shows how scared our nation (and other cultures) are to accept cultures from other regions of the world. Pokemon is harmless, but its also very vibrant and colorful, adults didn't understand it when it first came out, and well, we saw our culture in a state where children were embracing elements of other cultures but the parents were scared and concerned of the subject matter. Kind of makes you think.
Anyway, I'll probably have more of these pokemon stories in the future, I find them quite fascinating. Hope you did too.
For my first post, I will discuss my absolute favorite band, blink-182.
These three guys (Mark, Tom, and Travis) have created music together that just hits me in just the right way. And their sound evolved at just the right time in my life (going from the Enema of the State/Take Off Your Pants and Jacket sound to the self titled album sound) in 2003. In fact, the self titled album is by far my favorite album to date. Its brilliant and different and frankly I've never heard another album quite like it. Its not a joke album, and it proved that these guys can be and should be taken seriously.
So naturally, it came as quite a shock on that sad day in February 2005 when it was announced that the guys broke up (I'm sorry went on an indefinite hiatus). I never really lost hope that they would one day return, but the more I learned of the circumstances surrounding the split, the more faith I lost in that sentiment. And then one day in late 2008, Travis Barker with DJ AM were on a private plane that sadly crashed and killed the only 4 other people on the plane (the two pilots, their good friend Chris Baker, and Travis' bodyguard). Miraculously Travis and DJ AM survived the crash, but sustained significant injuries. Suddenly, life was put into perspective of all three members of blink. As well as DJ AM, but sadly his story took a much different course, and ended in a very unsettling way, suffice to say, the only living survivor of the plane crash today is Travis Barker.
Anyways, not long after it was announced that blink would return, life was too short and whatever these guys were mad at each other about, just didn't make sense anymore. So the joy that I felt when it was revealed that the blink boys would be at the Grammys presenting an award together was that which I've only felt one other time when my parents gave me a car for graduating college (just happened a few days ago actually). Sure enough, it was at these awards that the guys announced their return as a band. My life was complete.
But that was then, early 2009. I'm writing this now in May 2011, and aside from a few tours and late night performances there really hasn't been any new blink material. Don't get me wrong, the two shows I went to in the summer of 2009 were awesome (Milwaukee show was way better than Minneapolis show though). My complaint though is, these guys are taking too long to finally release anything new. We haven't heard one new song yet, best we've gotten is an 8 second clip of Mark singing a tune, and its cool that we got that, but the fans definitely deserve more at this point. In the summer of 2009, it was claimed that a new song, Up All Night would be released, yet it never was and still hasn't seen the light of day. It is very frustrating. I really want to hear new material. I'm sure that the reason it wasn't released is that it didn't sound too good, perhaps it sounded too much like Tom's crummy other band Angels and Airwaves. A truly awful band with only a couple of decent tunes. Its not like Tom isn't brilliant writing and performing music on his own as evidenced by his 2002 side project Box Car Racer, its just that when he tries the different spacey style of AVA constantly, he loses his appeal. And its not like there isn't a place for that kind of sound, Asthenia on the self titled blink album is absolutely a precursor to AVA, but its substantially better than every AVA song, save perhaps the Adventure.
Anyways, the point is, I grow impatient as the days go by. Supposedly the new blink album will arrive sometime in the summer, and you can be assured that when it does I will quickly be here to review it. But I am disappointed with how long it has taken for these guys to go from announcing their return to the release of any new material, two years and counting at this point.
So here's to hoping that this album doesn't become Chinese Democracy, and it truly is released this summer. Sound off your opinions in the comments section.
Hello, my name is Mike Whiting. I have created this blog to chronicle the things in life that I love. This will mostly amount to opinions of pop culture movies, music, and video games.
But it wont be just that, it will be a blog that will help with certain tutorials, for example softmodding the wii. It will include discussions of projects that I want to take on, and hopefully host such projects as well. I will try to update this thing at least once a week.
So without further ado, I will continue from here to post my first actual blog post, hope you enjoy my site :)
