11-12-09: It has been a fairly long time since my last rant. Again, I woud like to mention how happy that actually makes me. The less I rant, they less I let things get to me and my Happy quotient is up. In science, this is called an inverse relationship. Well... that lasted for more than a year. Not too shabby, if you ask me. Lately, no one thing has pissed me off enough to rant. It has been the collision of many smaller annoying topics that have gotten to me and finally forced me to sit down and type this out. It's getting in the way of work and killing my deadlines like a downed powerline takes out a lighting store. So... pick your poison! 1.War on Pre-Halloween Christmas 2.Artistic Humanity 3.Public Self-Control - -- - -- ~ -- - -- - •War on Pre-Halloween Christmas Times are tough all around. Thanks to the awesome cascade fail of the World's monetary systems due to nearly 30+ years of bad business decisions, the populous has no cash. Many are not just poor, they are in debt. Think on that for a second - You are in a position that you technically have no money. You may have a twenty in your pocket but your account is sitting in the negative number range. You pay a little off and you are Still in the negative. Now that the concept of debt is n your head, turn on your television. Go ahead, this can wait. It is just text after all. If you live in the US, you probably noticed this since early October - Christmas themed advertisements. I really don't have anything against the holiday. It makes folks happy, my nieces and nephews are happy and everything is kinda' awesome for a second. True, it is forced happiness but sometimes happiness needs to be forced. It's the fact that no other holidays exist anymore. Remember Thanksgiving? That day where folks get together, pig out on food and pass out in front of the boob tube. Did you know it still exists? Yep. Wouldn't know it with commercials telling you to spend money you don't have (and probably never will) on expensive crap to drown out the idea that You Have No Money. I'm sorry stores out there, I Have No Money. In some cases, You Owe Me Money that You Don't Have. Please, lay off the insanely early ads next year or push cheaper priced stuff that you can easily sell and the people at large can actually afford. -.- - -- - -- ~ -- - -- - •Artistic Humanity This one came about when I read the journal post of a kid who was shot down looking for some tips on improving their artwork. They had asked a popular artist they really dug for some pointers. This is what I took out from my reply. "I saw cats like that back in college. Couldn't talk to them at all. Their head was stuck too deep in their lower colon if you catch my drift. Folks like that may have skills but they lack class. Without class, they mistake what they have for something of value beyond what it is. They have forgotten what it was like to start, ya' dig? "The Greats didn't start out great. They simply started and progressed. As the year's passed, they got better. They practiced and fiddled with programs and messed around with different mediums. They asked questions, made mistakes and even got some replies from people. Unfortunately, some got accolades by the crap-ton and it went to their heads." - -- - -- ~ -- - -- - •Public Self-Control I recently read a topic over at the Daily Cartoonist - a place I tend to avoid like the plague - about a cartoonist who won a newspaper strip competition. Having read some of her other work, I was happy for her and I think she'll go far. Thing is, that wasn't the reason I was there. I was there to find out about the latest drama between Scott Kurtz and Ted Rall. Their epic pissing contests are the reason I don't hit that site up. Rall is a pompous ass who finds ways to bring up the long dead fight of Syndicate cartoonists versus Web cartoonists in even the thinnest of topics. I could drop a topic on that site about advance quantum theory and Ted will inevitably show up and make outlandish unsupported claims that he and his brothers-in-arms at the Syndicates are The cartoonists and all others are simply people scribbling to bad scripts. This is not a view held by everyone and is pretty much him being the self appointed spokesperson of folks who don't need him. Scott Kurtz is no better. This sad sack is drawn into these arguments like a moth to a flamer. Not being one to be outdone, Kurtz will start a one-up pissing match with Rall knowing damn well the topic was on something completely different and leaving Rall to his dreamworld is the best option. Instead he dives head first into Rall's delusions and helps to shit all over someone else's spotlight. You know, like Kanye... only less hilarious and in stereo. Hey Kids, it's WarGames! The Only move is Not To Play!=D Of course, that's just what I think.