AtxAxLoss Review: Most reasons for voting.

People keep bugging me about them, so now I'm gonna bug you. Here are some myths and fallacies about voting I don't much fancy.



1.
If you don't vote, you have no right to complain!

That's obviously untrue. Everyone has a right to complain about anything they want, regardless of what they do or don't do. It's called the freedom of speech, and it's secured in the first amendment.


1a.
Yea? Well, if you don't vote, I don't have to listen to you complain!

No one has to listen to anyone to complain, unless you have some weird masochistic impulses you need to work out.


1b.
Fine, but if you don't vote, I personally don't think you should complain!

Obviously. You're entitled to that opinion, but in terms of its actual truth value, it has as much merit to it as saying you shouldn't complain if you DO vote: none. It's an opinion, not a law. There are things I think people shouldn't do, but they do them. That's life.



2.
Your vote makes a difference!

In terms of the presidential election, no, it really doesn't make any meaningful difference. Take my case; I live in New York.
Browse http://electoral-vote. com/ a little, and you'll discover that outside of Hawaii and Washington DC, New York is Obama's strongest state. My participation or lack thereof isn't going to change that.


I'll push it even further to say that your vote won't make a meaningful difference in the most swinging of swing states. The chances of your one vote being the deciding factor are astronomically small. People will cite the 2000 presidential election, saying the election was decided by 537 people. Last time I checked, 537 > 1, and by a considerable margin. You can cut it as close as you like, walking into the booth with the expectation that it might come down to your vote has no support in reality.


2a.
Yea, but the popular vote! Every vote is needed to show by how much or how little the victor won or the loser lost!

No. The significant factor of the difference between the two main candidates is in the millions, or possibly in the hundreds of thousands. Your +1 on either side or the absence of it is purely a matter of trivia.



3.
What if everyone thought like that and didn't vote?

If everyone thought like I did, we wouldn't need to vote — we'd all just agree with each other. Of course, that's stupid, and the characteristics of that imaginary situation shouldn't be applied to reality. Why should the characteristics of the imaginary situation of no one voting if I decided not to be applied to reality either? The fact is, whether or not I vote isn't going to change whether anyone else votes or doesn't.



4.
If I don't vote, Puff Daddy will kill me!

I can assure you he won't.



5.
People have died so I could vote!

Just because people have died to secure your rights doesn't necessitate that you practice them — you have the opportunity, and that's really the idea. There is a multitude of rights you have for which people have died.
Do you own a gun on the basis that people died to preserve your second amendment right? What about the right to a fair trial? If I don't ever go to trial in my life, is that a spit in the face of the people who worked so that I can have that opportunity?

Everyone who's fought and died for a right has done so to provide an option, not a mandate. A right is a choice, and making the decision between whether to practice that right or not is an expression of the freedom it affords you. If it weren't a matter of choice, as the pressure imposed by the line of argument in question might suggest, then it isn't a right; it's force. Vote or don't, but don't make that the reason why.



I'm not all against voting, though. There are some reasons that I feel don't particularly suck.
Here are a few:


1. It's fun.


That's really up to you, but if you're into politics and the like, then it's a pretty neat way to have some level of involvement.


2. So you can say you can voted for McCain/Obama/etc.


If you' enjoy saying that sort of thing, voting for the candidate would make that a factually accurate statement.


3. Because whether it makes a difference or not, you simply like being a part of something.


Sure, that's your prerogative. Basically, any reason that roots itself in a personal preference toward the act of voting in and of itself, it's never really invalid.


4. Because you support our system of democratic government.


This is really the strongest reason, I think. If our democratic government is something you want to stand by, then you should vote. A democratic government thrives on the collective voice of its people, and every vote is a key part of the process. Whether your input makes a difference or not should be irrelevant; support of a system of democratic government and participation in it, from any logical standpoint, go hand in hand.



So vote, or don't. It's your worldview, not anybody else's. There's nothing inherently wrong in whatever conclusion you draw — just don't come to your conclusion falsely.


Most reasons for voting: Two Thumbs Up


My reasons: Four Thumbs Up

AtxAxLoss Review: Waking Life.

Director:
Richard Linklater
Starring:
Wiley Wiggins
Robert C. Solomon
Ethan Hawke
Julie Delpy
A bunch of really fucked up drawings
And Bill Wise as Boat Car Guy


I'd popped it in after I finished watching Fight Club for the first time in years. I was surprised to see I still loved Fight Club after all those rewatches and all that time. It seemed occasionally pretentious, but that didn't get in the way of it being a genuinely great movie. One small annoyance I perceived while watching it was that some lines, particularly the narrated ones, gave you the sense that while they were being written, the writer — in true writer fashion — thought them at least momentarily to be the most profound and original things ever uttered in the history of mankind. But being a particularly well written movie, I could overlook that. Little did I know when I threw Waking Life on, those lines would account for every character, every unprovoked speech, and every bit of dialogue in the fucking movie.


Maybe I lack the requisite Master's degree in Spare Time Pseudo-intellectual Dickery, but most of what any given character had to say was 10% idea and 90% bullshit and glitter. Even the ideas were nothing I haven't heard before. Nevertheless, everyone would passionately spout off their practiced soliloquies with the comfortably albeit misguided assurance that anyone around them gives a fuck. I'll be the first to say that there's probably some great, wonderful intended meaning in the mix of it all, but hell if the movie makes finding it even a remotely promising pursuit. By the time the fourth nutbag bleeds out every semblance of a thought he's ever had like he's got an undying desperation to make the most out of their Bachelor's in philosophy, the film is long past the point of evidencing any interest in engaging the viewer, apparently opting instead to beat the stupid out of him with its mighty pseudo-intellectual dick.


If I'd known what was ahead of me, I would've saved myself a few hours, injected some LSD, threw Richard Linklater's iPod on shuffle, smacked myself in the face with a modern art textbook, and staggered half-lucid into a Philosophy 101 class.


Two Thumbs Up

Take two.

I've decided to give this blog thing another go. I continually neglected my blogsite for ages, solely on the basis that I never felt like doing a formal review apart from that one time where I actually did. So I've decided to loosen up, and broaden my range to include video games, music, food, my day, shit in the mail. Whatever I feel like. Whatever it takes to endow the public with my charming wit and personality.

AtxAxLoss Review: Towards the end of Metal Gear Solid 1.

Is it just me, or does the gameplay of Metal Gear Solid 1 decline seriously toward the end?


Don't get me wrong. On the whole, the game was an amazing and innovative feat in both gameplay and storyline. It built the foundation for the entire series, which I happen to adore. But after replaying MGS1 for the umpteenth time, I realized I stop enjoying it right after the last Sniper Wolf fight.


I know a good deal of it has to do with the fact I'm replaying it. I fully appreciate the whole shape memory alloy thing, because the sheer annoyance of it really enhances the subsequent plot twist. God knows it needed it, because it was kind of ridiculous. Overall, I thought that segment overall was well done, but it's expectedly tedious on replays. But it's the parts afterward that really fillet my mignon.


The Metal Gear Rex battle irritates me a little. Granted, a lot of my frustration came from when I admittedly stupidly forgot that you can use the chaff grenades to disable the homing missiles in the first segment, but I thought there were some valid flaws. The fact that the whole level was a nigh incoherent blue blob didn't help any. When you ran into the higher parts of the screen and the camera pans up, it's really annoying to have to pick up on this wandering pink polygon of Snake's face to know where you are. Plus the Stinger apparently decided that locking on was for ninnies and communists, so I was shooting by approximation for most of the battle.


But I can live with that. It's a towering mass of sci-fi metallic death against a barely agile little man. It's not supposed to be easy. What really gets to me is the fist fight with Liquid on the Metal Gear.


The fact that the climax of the action is based on a somewhat weak and otherwise minor function of the game (ie. the hand-to-hand combat system) wasn't great form, and it evidences itself in the battle. There's something a little comical about watching two grown polygon men battle shirtless on the ruins of a Metal Gear skilled in the lost art of Punch-Punch-Kick kata. It takes away from the experience. And it slips into some well-worn game cliches, like Blinking Bad Guy syndrome, a staple in video game physics and evildoer anatomy and physiology. I can let it go sometimes, but part of the challenge hinges on a part where Liquid starts blinking a little earlier on in your Punch-Punch-Kick and hits you mid kick if you don't break and run off. The game changes its own made up natural laws midbattle. I thought it was a shallow move for a game that had earlier on been much more inventive and satisfying with its challenges, all the while still being difficult. Add to that the fact that Liquid has the endemic Bad Guy compulsion to interject his repetitive and nonsensical babblings into the battle ("You're out of time!" when you clearly have 1:30 left to kick his ass) and you got yourself an annoying finish to the game.


I won't even get into the driving sequence. Suffice it to say that it's really a let down to see an antagonist who lived through a helicopter crash, repeated missile shots to the face, a hundred or so foot fall, numerous machine gun wounds, and a serious car accident die from unrelated causes. And I really wonder why they stationed these supermen who can take rounds of machine gun ammo and still stand in the outskirts of fucking nowhere so they can sit and scratch their genetically modified balls.


Two Thumbs Up

Best movie ever? The answer is simple.

YOJIMBO

Director:
Akira Kurosawa
Starring:
Toshiro Mifune
Tatsuya Nakadai
Takashi Shimura


Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, the film which spawned the iconic Fistful of Dollars as well as a number of other works, contains everything a great film should have. It can be viewed and enjoyed on a completely aesthetic level, but it is at heart a true example of great filmmaking, showcasing one of the best of many collaborations of legendary talents Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune in their prime. And though its story was told and re-told across years and continents, its wit and attitude remain distinct to this day — truly a testament to the film's timeless qualities.

The film, set in 1860 after the fall of the Tokugawa dynasty, follows a nameless ronin who goes by the self-given name Sanjuro (Roughly translated as "fourty-ish.") He wanders into a gang-run town and decides to make a living by killing in a town full of people who need killing. And he is the perfect man for the job, given his extreme skills, appropriate for a story unabashedly told in terms of extreme good and extreme evil.

Mifune's Sanjuro enters the film with just as much presence as when he leaves it and never loses it for a moment, communicating the character's unusual personality even with his back turned to us. Smoothly making the transitions between laid-back disinterest and barbaric intensity, Mifune demonstrates his versatility, creating his character with minimalist chin brushes and squints to counterbalance his trademark throaty growl. It's his small quirks, his graceful gracelessness that distinguishes Sanjuro from the many action heroes of today. His charm, unlike that of so many imitators, isn't buried below the film's body count, and is instrumental in the film's tounge-in-cheek mood.

Shot by Rashomon cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa, the film visually and thematically recalls the John Ford westerns which Kurosawa cites as one of his great influences as a filmmaker. The isolated feudal Japanese town plays to the established connotations of the untamed west. However, the artistry with which all the actions on screen are handled is all Kurosawa. Every frame is composed as if it were a painting, making what other directors would address as simple movements as walking down stairs or a chaotic sword fight into visual artistry.

As was what seemed to be the theme of Kurosawa's career, humanism and the power of the individual in a world of overpowering evil are central to the situation that plays out in Yojimbo. In a quote taken from the 1999 book The Films of Akira Kurosawa by Donald Richie and repeated in the booklet included in the recent Criterion re-release of the DVD, Kurosawa says "I've always wanted to somehow or other stop these senseless battles of bad against bad, but we're all more or less weak — I've never been able to. And that is why the hero of this picture is different from us. He is able to stand squarely in the middle and stop the fight. And it is — him — that I thought of first. That was the beginning of the film in my mind." What Yojimbo represents to Kurosawa is a world where conflict is erased by an idealization of a power that can make the world quiet and peaceful again, like rain to a drought. It's utter fantasy, but a fantasy in the hands of a master auteur like Akira Kurosawa is just the right material for a masterpiece.


Five Thumbs Up