Amanita Muscaria

Since my TV is dead, I've been listening to a lot of music! Tonight I was listening to Life's Rich Pageant by REM, which is their best album, and I was particularly moved by The Flowers of Guatemala. I have always been partial to this song, but tonight it struck more deeply than before. I had always understood that it was a very political song about the atrocities committed by the US installed fascist dictatorship, which it is. The beautiful but deadly Amanita flower covers the graves of the victims of this regime, and that in itself has always given this song rich meaning and symbolism, but tonight I looked deeper at this "flower" and the more I learned about it the more the song meant until I think I have finally reached the heart of this song, which is very complex! On the surface, it is about the flower, but underneath that the flower is a symbol of the poisonous regime and its genocide, but if you look even deeper the song becomes about the flower again and its relationship to the people of Guatemala and these peoples' relationship with the global society. Very deep, but let's look at what this flower really is!

The Amanita Muscaria, although widely referred to as a flower by the people of Guatamala is, in fact, an extremely hallucinogenic and entheogenic mushroom - a red and white one like the ones in Alice In Wonderland! Now this is where we really dive in head first, but just stick with me. These mushrooms grow under conifer - read Christmas - trees, and they are mostly red and white but sometimes gold. Children are often sent to collect them from under the trees and bring them back to their parents. Much like brightly wrapped presents under the Christmas tree or the way that we send children to hunt for colorful eggs under trees to bring back to their parents for treats on Easter! I'm not the only one who sees parallels here - John Marco Allegro was the only non-catholic priest out of 12 who were qualified to read the Dead Sea Scrolls and he believed that the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that Christianity came from fertility cults and that the Amanita is the forbidden fruit in the creation myth. Is it any wonder reindeer can fly?

The entheogenic mushroom's close ties to Christianity don't end with Catholics "borrowing" Easter from fertility cults either. We all knew that anyway, but let's look at the Amanita a little closer. Rain and dew collects in the "grail" stage of the mushroom, turning a deep red, and shamens would drink this water. "Take this, all of you, and drink from it: for this is the chalice of my blood..."  The Eucharist is certainly rich with symbols of the Amanita.

So let's explore how the celebration of the birth of Jesus and the Ascension comes full circle and relates to the creation myth through the magical mushroom, the Amanita! The most commonly consumed and most hallucinogenic part of the mushroom is called the "eve" and it comes from the underside of the mushroom, known as the "ribs." Do I even need to explain the obvious implications of this in the creation myth? Eve, the enlightened one, came from Adam's rib... Remember that part from Sunday school? So, the idea that the Amanita is the forbidden fruit becomes very convincing here, and as the manifestation of enlightenment, it is celebrated through symbolic collection on both Easter and Christmas along with the role it plays in the Eucharist. So, wherever we see the felix culpa theme represented prominently in the Bible we will most likely see the Amanita. This is not  surprising, as this magic mushroom has been a catalyst for enlightenment for shamens for ages, and in a very tangible way the "fortunate fall" is ever present in the duality of this mushroom as both a poison as well as a hallucinogen. People who indulge in the Amanita often get sick before they get "enlightened" so it is, in a very real way, a physical manifestation of the fortunate fall - "felix culpa."

It is clear to me that the Amanita is an ancient entheogenic mushroom that played a large role in fertility cults, and it is also clear to me that the people who penned the bible were well versed in the rites and lore of these cults as well. Certainly we shouldn't be surprised that some of this made its way into the Bible and thus into modern day Christianity, and I certainly wouldn't imply that this makes the messages contained in the good book any less relevant than they are to modern day Christians. It is also clear to me that Michael Stipe is aware of all of these things and is ingenious in the way that he weaves all of this into a song about pretty flowers that creates such a profound sociopolitical message. Ergo, Michael Stipe is a genius, but we already knew that too.

Plasma Pop!

So I was playing my xbox yesterday when my 18 month old, 58" Samsung Plasma TV went pop and died. That doesn't supposed to happen to new TV's! So I looked it up online to discover that my TV isn't the only one to experience what has become known as the "Samsung Pop of Death" or "Samsung Plasma Pop!" The failure rate on my PN58C8000YF and similar models is apparently extremely high, and there are endless cases of this failure happening within hours or days of unboxing! They are the lucky ones though - theirs are still under warranty! Mine is not... Still, I decided to chat with a tech online at Samsung.com who told me that I was out of luck, so I asked her if she had a webcam, cause I wanted her to play with her boobies while she fucked me. She declined, so I read an antique paperback book that I keep for rainy days and went to sleep. I dreamed of alligators...

The next morning I woke up at 7am for some reason and thought that perhaps it had all been a dream. However, when I pressed the power button on my remote, my TV still didn't work... So I got up and took my shower and had some breakfast before I decided to call Samsung and see if I could get anything accomplished. In fairness, the picture on my plasma was amazing when it worked, but this had been the third major failure for my TV in the 18 months since I bought it, and it just seemed to me that I had a reasonable expectation that the top of the line Samsung plasma TV that I paid $3,000 a mere year and a half ago should last for, oh, I dunno, maybe the 100,000 hours that Samsung claims their plasma TV's last. Screw their express warranty, I needed Samsung to remedy this situation under their implied warranty! So, I called 1-800-samsung and was connected to an agent directly with no wait time and he even spoke English without an accent! Bravo, at least Samsung does that right.

The agent was friendly when he explained to me that he couldn't do anything for me except help arrange a service call at my expense. I asked him why I should stand behind their product if they wouldn't and asked him if there was anyone who might be able to help me at which point he transferred me to a supervisor directly. I explained again, as I did with the agent before, that I didn't give a damn about their express warranty - this "plasma pop" is a known issue and the failure rate is way too high. This was the third major failure I have had with this TV in the short time that I have owned it and I had a reasonable expectation that their top of the line plasma should last within the scope of the 100,000 hours that was stated in their own marketing materials. He asked me what I wanted him to do about my TV and I told him that I wanted him to do the right thing! I expected the situation to be remedied by Samsung to restore my confidence as a consumer. To that effect, he offered to extend my warranty and send out a technician to repair my TV free of charge. I was happy with that and thanked him and wished him a good day. At this point I am actually feeling pretty fortunate, which is odd considering that I am the one who is aggrieved...

Later that day I did indeed receive a call from the repair man as promised, and I was at first very happy. That happiness soon turned to dismay as I recognized his voice as the same repairman who had visited me three times in the past... Shortly after I bought the TV it developed a problem known as "window shading" where dark vertical lines across the screen made it almost unwatchable so he came out and verified the problem and ordered a new screen which he returned with a week later. He proceeded to dismantle my tv, removing every single component and fitting the new screen until he realized that the screen was the wrong one before disassembling and  reassembling the tv with the old defective screen and telling me he would reorder the part and return. He did return a week later with the correct screen and once again went through the process of disassembling my tv and installing the new screen and reassembling the tv. When we lifted the tv off the floor I noticed that the protective film was still on the new screen and that a part of the tv was still on the floor that he had forgotten to install. He informed me that it was just a heat shield that wasn't important and that it was a good thing to have the protective film on the tv to protect it. I wasn't having it so he reluctantly disassembled the tv once again and removed the film and reinstalled the heat shield at my insistence and left me with a working tv. I never did have confidence in the tv after that, frankly. See, I own an Akita dog who sheds a lot and my carpet isn't exactly a sterile environment suitable for assembling sensitive electronics, and moreover, the stress on the components of having them disassembled and reassembled three or four times must have had some effect on their integrity. Still, my tv worked and that was that, but I cannot help feeling that all of this might well have played a part in my tv's recent failure. So now he was asking me if the power light comes on and whether it's flashing or staying lit. I told him it came on and stayed lit and he said he'll order the part I need and be out on Thursday or Friday. That's it? That's all the diagnostics he needs? I asked him what parts he is ordering and he told me not to worry about it. My heart sank...  The idea of the same guy coming out and disassembling my tv on the floor again just seems like a bad idea! I don't think I'll ever have confidence in this unit again, and I don't expect it to last for another six months frankly

After the tech called me I got on the phone with Samsung again and gave a supervisor my case number and explained everything I explained above to her. She said she completely understood my concerns, but that she was obligated to try to repair the unit before she could send me a new TV. She did, however, send me her direct contact information and told me that if I had any concerns after the repairs that I could get in touch with her and she would do whatever she needed to do to make me happy. That was very reassuring, but I really hope that the repairs don't go well! I don't feel like I'm asking for something for nothing - I feel like I paid good money for a product, and that I did not get what I paid for. At this point, I just feel like I need a new TV with a new warranty to restore my confidence in the Samsung brand.

A Million Dollars Isn't Cool. Know What's Cool? A Billion Dollars!

I stole my title from The Social Network, but I was wondering, what is cool? I've received "interesting" and "funny" responses to my blog, but no cool. Maybe blogging about video games and google isn't cool, so let me put on my shades, turn up the jazz, pour myself a glass of Absinthe and explore cool, man.

Why is a billion dollars cool? Money's not cool at all... And it becomes even less cool when it is apparent. When an artist makes money he becomes uncool, doesn't he? The bohemian artist and all that he embodies is cool until he finds financial success and its trappings at which point he becomes instantly uncool. The bohemian creates for the sake of creation, and his inspiration inspires us, while the artist who creates for commission is inspired by the motivation of his own reward, and in so is self-absorbed and greedy. So you'd think a billion dollars isn't cool, but you'd be wrong.

What is a million dollars? It's the alpha male roaring up to the club in his Lamborghini. He's cocky. He's got a pocket full of money, his choice of women and he doesn't afraid of anything. He is the master of his universe, and he thinks he is cool. But he's not. He's not cool. He's a tool! At the end of the day, the only thing he's proven is that his worth is measured by the length of his tab.

So, what is a billion dollars? A billion dollars doesn't have anything to prove. A billion dollars is the quiet man sitting alone in the crowd at The Spotted Cat, listening to the Jazz Vipers. He's happy there, and he is doing what he wants to be doing. He is not putting on airs or impressing anyone. He is content just being. Being... cool!

So, a billion dollars is cool because it doesn't have to be anything else. It can just be. And so is the starving artist, confident and content. He's not chasing success because he is success. He doesn't have a billion dollars. He is a billion dollars, and THAT's cool.

Google Is, In Fact, Smarter Than I Am!

OK, so we have had tools to protect us from ourselves forever, but we take them for granted except when they don't work. Spell check is great, but no matter how many times I tell it to learn my last name, which is "Starr," it always tries to change it to "star" or "starry." My iphone has developed the habit of changing "if" to "i'f" for some reason, and my old Mac in college used to tell me that my papers were 8th grade level unless I inserted ubiquitous ten cent words that served no other purpose than to add pretentiousness... Still, layout editors, spell check, auto-complete and any number of other tools do, in the end, make our lives easier to some degree.

Apparently, now, google has taken this to an entirely new level, and I'm thrilled that it can, but I am saddened that it needs to. You see, this morning I wrote an email on my gmail account to an associate reviewing a conference call that we were on and it covered several topics, but at one point in the email I mentioned that I would be attaching some tower photos to the email for her due diligence, but then I forgot to actually attach them before I hit the send button. Oops, not the first time I've done that, but something different happened this time. Gmail gave me a pop up that said, and I paraphrase, "Hey dummy, didn't you forget something! You said you were going to attach some pictures, but I don't see any pictures attached, so why don't you go back and try again before I send this email and embarrass you!" Holy shit, man! Google is reading my emails now, and not just for spelling and punctuation, but for meaning and intent! Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that it caught the mistake, but now I can't deny that google is, indeed, smarter than I am, and THAT makes me sad face...

Finding Time To Game

I posted this a while ago in a forum thread on x360a about how people with large gamerscores find time to play so many games. I was feeling a little cheeky at the time, so I penned a short satirical guide, poking a little fun at the achievement community. It got a really good response with a lot of laughs from other members, so I decided to re-post it here on my blog for kicks. Hope you enjoy it.


Official Guide for Finding Time To Game

First off, dump your girlfriend! She wastes at least 3 hours a week bitching about how much time you spend gaming. If you don't want to lose the girlfriend, then give her that baby she keeps dropping hints about - that'll keep her too busy to waste time bitching at you about playing games! When you're playing your xbox at 3am and the baby starts crying, go stick a bottle in its mouth - that will win you bonus points with the misses, and possibly even add value to your gaming habit in her eyes! Resist the urge to snuff the baby out with a pillow over the face, as this will require you to make another one and waste more time and resources in the end! If you're in the middle of a multiplayer match and the little bastard starts crying, it is perfectly acceptable to wait until the match is over to tend to its needs – it's just hungry, and babies are too fat anyway! One possible downside to this is that the wife might wake up and feed the baby, in which case you will have to listen to her bitch for at least fifteen minutes before you can get back to your game. If this happens, one workaround is to leave the tv on really loud to drown out the babies cries.

Now that you have the situation at home under control, you need to get a handle on work. Working hard early in your career pays off in the long run, because once you get promoted to department head/middle management it's all about delegating responsibility, and delegating responsibility means more nap time for you! This is crucial, as the ideal gaming hours from 11pm - 5am can be wasted on sleep if you don't get enough nap time at work! Skipping lunch also affords you another hour for napping, and every cheeseburger you skip means less time at the gym and more time sitting on that couch getting achievements! It's win/win! If you can't seem to make it to middle management or simply don't want to put forth the effort, disability and/or social welfare programs are also popular means to your gaming ends. Some people think social welfare programs will limit the amount of disposable income available for Gamefly/Gamestop, but there are other ways to tighten your budget without sacrificing gaming goodness... Sell that condo in the city for a trailer in the park! Not only will this cut your housing expenses, but it is perfectly acceptable to forgo diapers and shoes for the baby in this social environment! Also, with an easily accessible and copious availability of Captain's Wafers and Slim Jims, you can really cut down on the baby food bill!

Pro Tips: Coffee is your friend, but avoid it at work as it may keep you awake during the daytime. Both whiskey and weed can enhance your gaming experience, but never at the same time. The synergistic effect of these two can make you fall asleep with the controller in your hand. Whiskey and cocaine on the other hand is the cocktail of rock stars - the professional all night party people, but this can be prohibitively expensive to all but the most wealthy trust fund babies and entertainment executives. Sexual activities (with or without partner) should be limited to after gaming or before work (and lunchtime if you have a cute assistant) as this can also cause you to fall asleep with your, ahem, controller in your hand...

This system is by no means set in stone! It is merely a loose outline for success, and you should feel free to make adjustments to suit your specific requirements! I hope this helps, and happy achievement hunting!

Waggle the Dog

What I've seen from E3 this year is Microsoft putting all their marbles into Kinect, Sony pushing Move and Nintendo going back to the controller? Wait, what? Microsoft and Sony playing catch-up with Nintendo? And Nintendo, trying to scoop up all the core gamers while Microsoft and Sony blunder with motion sensors and alienate the core gamer? It makes me wonder if this wasn't Nintendo's plan from the start, with the wii little more than a clever diversion to confuse everyone while they rob the the cradle at midnight as Microsoft and Sony sleep, with visions of motion sensors dancing in their heads. Could this be a case of the tail “waggling” the dog?

There's no doubt about it, the wii has been a smashing success and casual gamers worldwide flocked to it and its waggle controls. It is the top selling console worldwide, and it's not even HD. It has only flash memory and no real online... In fact, it's really just a Gamecube with a gimmicky controller that, frankly, doesn't even work very well! Nevertheless, it's sold extremely well, and Nintendo has made boatloads of money from it. So, why is Nintendo going in a different direction with the next generation console? If it ain't broke then don't fix it, right? But it is broken. It's so broken that you're more likely to find one holding a door open than hooked up to a TV... Sure, plug it in and it still plays games, but it's still broken, nonetheless. Sales have declined, the novelty has worn off, and millions of the white plastic boxes sit, collecting dust. Perhaps this is because it was only ever a clever diversion meant to fill the gap until they released their true next gen console, the wii u! And, like I said, it was a smashing success!

Meanwhile, let's look at what Microsoft offered up this year. Well, there is Kinect again. Then there's Kinect, and of course we can't overlook Kinect! Such a broad range of offering compared to last year's E3, when they introduced... Kinect! Wasn't Fable 3 supposed to have some truly amazing Kinect enabled features? It didn't... Seriously, Microsoft? Is this what the best and brightest brains from Berkley and Stanford came up with? The technology is impressive, sure! Everybody goes “oooh!” I mean, did you see the way Kinect captures your face and clothes and turns them into an avatar? Except, well, you can't actually use it as... an avatar... Believe me when I say that the core gamer is chewing through his own leg right now trying to escape your grasp. Kinect is, in fact, coyote ugly! Can't you see that through your bureaucracy? Who the hell is running that place now anyway? Stevie Wonder? How can the best and the brightest America has to offer be so dumb? We used to make heart lung machines... Now, we make Kinect? Let me make this clear, the core gamer will not go hands free until the cable from his xbox plugs directly into his brain. Work on that one...

And Sony is no better... If they're not finding ways to give away our credit card information, then they're too preoccupied with what Microsoft is doing to see the forest for the trees. Let me make this simple, Microsoft is trying to copy Nintendo, and you're trying to copy Microsoft, Sony... See what happened there? Where's Nintendo? They're getting ready to steal all your customers with the cutesy named fire-breathing dragon, the wii u. Will you be caught with your pants down when it burns down your house and steals your children? Well, it doesn't look good. What's your development cycle? 2015, right; that's the estimated date of your new console? Yeah, you might wanna rethink that strategy...

So, the company behind the simple little doorstop with waggle control aren't exactly simpletons, are they. They know gimmicks, and they understand consumers. We're gamers, but we have jobs, we exercise, we spend more time in the sun than you think. When we get home and want to play a game, we don't want to move our coffee tables, because that's where we like to put our feet... when we SIT on our sofas... and PLAY GAMES!!! If Microsoft and Sony insist on ramming motion sensors down our throats, then next Christmas we'll all be getting plenty of exercise doing the Kirby dance on our new Nintendos.

<(^.^<)<(^.^)>(>^.^)> ...all your customers are belong to us.