Steph’s Science Corner: the lasers you know, love, and absolutely fail to appreciate

Hi there, tech fans. Welcome to the new official science briefing of Charge Shot!!!

Some of you may recall that several months ago I made a brief and glorious appearance on After The Jump, during which I made an attempt explain how Blu-ray technology fits into the world of modern optical data storage. It landed me a lovely shout-out on the podcast title, but that also could have been a result of my juvenile abuse of the silly naming conventions that modern science trusts its community to take seriously, even when these acronyms and phrases are too hilarious not to be immature about (see: Highest Occupied Molecular Orbital).

This gave me an idea. I like to understand how modern technology works. I like to learn. I like to write. And I have an unimpressive bachelors degree in a scientific field or two that I’m only barely using in my current job. I decided to put that deadly combination to good use into this otherwise culturally- and sociologically-minded blog that I’m proud to be a part of. Therefore, future fans, I give you my new weekly feature. I hope it will expand your understanding of the world you live in as much as it satisfies my rampant tendency towards intellectual self-indulgence.

This week’s topic: LASERS.

As the world of modern technology and digital data races forward, the need for larger storage media is constantly growing to meet the demands of an innovation-hungry population. Recently, as inspired by my Blu-ray tangent from the podcast, I’ve been following news about the development of the HVD (Holographic Versatile Disc). While this technology is still in the development phase and currently prohibitively expensive (and will likely stay that way until about 2020), gigabyte-touting HD enthusiasts have been heralding the end of blu-ray since the HVD was conceived in the mid-2000s. But it’s important for me to reflect on the fact that innovations like this are possible because of the single most important tool in medicine, industrial and commercial manufacturing, and analytical scientific research: the laser.

In today’s modern word, lasers are everywhere from consumer electronics to information technology, from science and medicine to industry and entertainment. They also play an important role in law enforcement  in the military. They first emerged on the scene with the supermarket barcode scanner, which became common in 1974. The CD player and the laser printer weren’t far behind. Lasers are ubiquitous, essential, and responsible in some way or another for nearly all of the discovery and innovation that has taken place over the last fifty years.

What makes them special:

LASER stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. As I will no doubt return to in the future, please don’t be alarmed by the word “radiation.” In most cases, radiation simply describes electromagnetic waves propagating through space, i.e. how visible light travels from a bulb in your house to your eye. It radiates outward. In most cases when we discuss lasers, we’re still talking about visible light -- the colored beam that you’re told not to shine in your friends’ eyes. It is possible to produce other light-emitting laser devices (for UV light, microwaves, X-rays) using the same technology, and in 1959 when Gordon Gould first published the term LASER, he hoped that the –aser suffix would catch on (uvaser, maser, xaser).

It didn’t.

What makes a laser unique and exciting is that it produces a beam that is narrow, coherent, colinear, monochromatic, and low-divergence. Here’s what that means:

Light, which has a dual nature of being both a particle and a wave, illuminates a room by spreading out. All the different colors, phases, and directions of these light waves together make what we see as white light. Laser light, however, produces a beam of just a single, narrow-band wavelength, meaning it is only one color. And you’ll notice that this beam stays essentially straight over nontrivial distances – it doesn’t disperse. Coherence and colinearity are slightly more complicated features of laser light that have to do with diffraction and other properties that describe how a wave travels in both space and time, but a simple way of describing it would be to say that all the waves are “in-step” with each other. They have the same “size” and “shape” and they travel in the same direction along the same line. That makes it a lot easier to predict and measure how they interact with each other, with other waves, or with other matter.

How they work…sort of

This is not a phenomenon that is particularly easy to explain, especially without a background in quantum mechanics, a few well-designed figures, and hours of classroom time. What’s important to remember, however, is that it takes energy to produce energy. A laser has to be plugged into something, and the input is always larger than the output, making portability somewhat of a challenge.

A controlled material inside of a tube tube absorbs energy that excites the electrons in the material into a higher, slightly unstable energy state. When these electrons “fall” back down to their lower energy state, they emit that energy back out in the form of a light particle (a photon). This emission can be spontaneous, or stimulated by some other light particle passing by. In the latter case, the emitted photon comes out traveling in the same direction as the one that caught its attention, and with the same characteristics, which is how we get the focused beam. When there are more excited electrons than there are stable ones, you get something called population inversion, and we get more stimulated emission than energy-absorption, so the light coming out is amplified.

If you giggled at all during that last paragraph, don’t be too ashamed. It happens to the best of us.

Laser applications and specifications:

There are two main types of laser output: continuous wave or pulsed operation. A continuous wave laser stays on, a pulsed laser’s output alternates between on and off periods. They’re each used for different applications, but it’s worthwhile to note that a laser can achieve much higher peak power output in pulsed operation. You can think about that this way – if you apply an amount of energy to something over a longer time, that energy can disperse into other things like the air or surrounding materials. But if it’s applied for a very short time, it can be very focused at its maximum intensity. Lasers that produce a continuous beam are compared by their average power. Lasers that produce pulses can be characterized by the peak power of each pulse, which is usually significantly greater than the average.

You can find lasers in medicine (LASIK eye surgery, drying and sealing dental fillings), industry (cutting, welding, heat treatment, non-contact measurement), law enforcement (fingerprint detection in forensic identification), cosmetic treatments (acne, cellulite reduction, hair removal), scientific research (spectroscopy, scattering experiments, laser cooling, single atom capture) and of course, in the military (marking targets, guiding munitions, missile defense, and the offspring of the RADAR (which uses radio waves), the LIDAR).

Here is a list of the average power required to operate some devices you might be familiar with:

• 1 milliwatt (one one-thousandth of a Watt): laser pointers
• 5–10 mW – CD and DVD players
• 200-300 mW– Consumer DVD-R burner
• 1 Watt – green laser used in HVD development
• 1–20 W – commercial solid-state lasers
• 30–100 W – Surgical lasers
• 100–3000 W– Industrial cutting lasers
• 1.3 petawatt (1.3×10¹⁵ , 1,300,000,000,000,000, or 1.3 quadrillion Watts) – 1998’s most powerful pulsed laser, located in the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory

Okay, so when can we make laser guns?

Yes, I realize that some barcode scanners look a lot like Star Trek phazors, but I have to break the  unfortunate news to you: actual laser weapons are impractical, and are only beginning to enter the scene as anything other than a way to help aim. The theory is to hit a target with a high-output pulsed laser, causing rapid heating, evaporation and expansion of a surface. But the power needed to project a high-powered laser beam is not particularly conducive to the ease of mobility and light-weight requirements that an infantry might require. Certainly, there is the potential for mounted laser weaponry on vehicles, a concept that is being experimentally implemented in some areas of the military. And using lasers for missile detection and defense has been a long-standing practice.

But as far as laser guns go? Don’t get your hopes up too high just now. Sure, lasers can potentially be used as incapacitating weapons – you can put someone’s eyes out. Lasers of even a fraction of a watt in power can produce immediate and permanent vision loss under the right conditions, which is why your teachers warned you not to play around with the laser pointer. Fortunately, however, weapons designed to intentionally cause blindness have been banned by international humanitarian law.

Well that’s it for this week’s topic. I’ll be doing my best to keep up with interesting news, tech development, controversy, or other charge-shot writers’ articles to draw ideas for future posts, but I would love to take any and all requests. If you have any feedback, questions, or topic suggestions that you would like to see featured, feel free to sound off in the comments section or email me at science@charge-shot.com. Until next time, appreciate your gadgets and respect the science!

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Nights on Bald Mountain: 2 Much Horror Business - Prologue

October begins tomorrow and in the immortal words of Donovan, it "must be the season of the witch". That's right, Charge Shooters!!! It's time for the second annual installment of Nights on Bald Mountain!

For those of you new to this site, last October I undertook a personal crusade to acquaint myself with horror movies. Twenty-or-so years of being a huge wuss had kept me away from the genre and the many films, both good and bad, that audiences the world over have been acquainted with for generations. I thusly resolved to watch a horror movie every day and record my experiences here on Charge Shot!!! for all to see.

From The Hunger to The Shining, I kicked horror cinema's ass last year and emerged from the bloody pile of corpses I left in my wake an honest-to-blog horror movie expert. And I'm doing it again this year! This year, I'm adding a feature called But Was It Scary? wherein I'll give a succinct and honest summary of whether the day's movie actually sent shivers down my spine. After last year, I'd say I've got nerves of steel, but who knows what a couple dozen or so more horror films could do to me?

I've got enough movies queued up to last me the month but if you out there have any recommendations or, dare I say, challenges than by all means tweet them to me (or email the editors if you're Twitter-impaired) and I'll do my best to watch them!

So stop by tomorrow and all thirty-one days in October at noon for a new write-up of a selection from the canon of horror cinema! Tomorrow's entry is Wes Craven's classic A Nightmare on Elm Street! See you then!

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How the Hell Did I Get This Job?

From 8:30 (sometimes 8:45) to 4:30 every day, I am paid a not inconsiderable sum to figure out everything that's wrong with the computer that's sitting on your desk. I'd like to think that I'm reasonably good at this job, in spite of my liberal arts degree.

Yes, that's right, liberal arts degree. I believe that if you pick up a recent thesaurus, you'll find this unfortunate combination of words listed as a synonym for unemployed. Obviously, my schooling didn't train me for a life of installing, maintaining, and repairing technology, though it did help my ability to write about it for your benefit.

How, then, did I come by the skills necessary to do this stuff without being fired? If you've asked me this question before now, you've likely gotten a stock answer: it was a hobby, and then I got a job. This is not untrue, and it's descriptive enough to deter small-talkers, but it's not the whole story by a long shot.

No, the small-talkers, the ones who sit idly by while the Tech Guy fixes everything that's wrong with their computer, don't know what a loose cannon I was as a kid. Now, I'm the only guy you want working on your PC; then, I was the kid that your parents told you wasn't allowed on your computer.

Let's not start there, though. That's no fun. Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

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Hype Machine Head: 9.29.10

So for this new (and very occasional) feature, I'm going to be reviewing/evaluating/bitching about the top five artists according to immensely useful music blog aggregator the Hype Machine. If you're not familiar with the Hype Machine, render yourself as such. As its description implies, the site aggregates hundreds of music blogs and posts a new entry whenever one of those blogs posts an MP3 or a stream. The "About" section states clearly that the tracks it links to are "NOT available for download, but you can preview them via the play buttons that are next to each track."

In theory, that's true (and the preview function really is wonderful and allows you to favorite tracks and share them with others), but, in actuality, that's a load of whooey. Though the site provides links to legal music download sites like eMusic, iTunes, and Amazon, clicking the "Read Full Post" link will take you directly to the blog post itself, which usually hosts the actual MP3 file. I won't go so far as to endorse (or discourage) downloading said MP3s; I'm more concerned with the Hype Machine's pretty unique ability to put its finger on the pulse of the musical blogosphere (sorry; buzzword overload). The site allows you, in essence, to take in the indie music scene as an alternate mainstream which, in many ways, is exactly what it is.

But enough pontificating! A philosophical parsing of music blogs is more than enough to fill up its own post. For now, let's get to the music. I've decided not to use the "Popular Tracks" function because it's mostly populated by new remixes of old material. It's a section that certainly deserves your time but not one I'll cover here. Instead, I'll examine the artists in the "Most Blogged Artists" section on the home page, and look at one or two tracks that have captured the attention of the zeitgeist:

1. Kanye West - The fabled Bon Iver-sampling (alleged) lead single from Kanye's new record has finally leaked! The source material, a song called "Woods" off of Bon Iver's 2009 EP Blood Bank, is probably my favorite Bon Iver track and one of the most inventive pop compositions in recent memory. It's nothing more than Justin Vernon's heavenly vocals, multi-tracked and Auto-tuned. The track is so mesmerizing, so magnificent, you almost forget that it's four lines ("I'm up in the woods/I'm down on my mind/I'm building a still/To slow down the time") repeated ad nauseam. Kanye had a lot to live up to. Is it another hit?

Maybe, but that doesn't mean the song's all that great. The tinted-window Miami stomp of "Lost in the World" isn't bad on its own, but it mostly squashes the desperate beauty of the original. Here, Kanye trades wintery desolateness for nation-building grandiosity. Vernon's original track is of course swallowed whole by the newly-recorded vocals and the monstrous beat, but the very subject matter of the song has been transformed. "Woods" was about the attempt to "slow down" a moment in time, and an arresting combination of high-tech Autotune vocals and low-tech subject matter. Now, Kanye's building a city, and we're "lost in the world" rather than "up in the woods."

"Woods" made you want to pull on a sweater. "Lost in the World" calls to mind those stupid glasses from the "Stronger" video. Bleh.

2. Duck Sauce - The A-Trak/Armand Van Helden collabo with the predictably stupid name is also expectedly solid. A-Trak has been one of my favorite DJs since he released his absolutely unstoppable remix of "Stronger" back in 2008. "Barbara Streisand," the track currently setting fire to Ableton Live platforms around the country, is a dizzy slice of disco house, complete with infectious "whoo-hoo" vocals and a dead-pan recitation of the eponymous diva's name. Like the best house music, it's deceptively simple and inescapably catchy. If the band's goal is to appeal to club DJ's, they've certainly accomplished it. Peep the star-studded video, too.

3. British Sea Power - Chock this up as one of those "I don't get what all the fuss is about" bands. Their Allmusic bio cites comparisons to bands like Joy Division and the Fall, but all I hear is a slightly more interesting, less melodically-inclined Kings of Leon. The orchestral thunk-thunk-thunk of the guitars on "Zeus" is fairly interesting, I guess, but I got bored when the frantic "Who's my boy/B-b-boy" part came in, with its tremolo picking and crash-happy drums. Pitchfork snidely awarded their last album a score of "U2," and while I disagree with the reference point, I'm on the same page as far as derivativeness.

4. Deerhunter - I had the same blase feeling about Bradford Cox's psych-pop collective until I heard the singles from their new album, Halycon Digest, out now on 4AD. Where their previous compositions were murky and indistinct, the tracks from this album have been crisp slices of spacey indie pop. "Helicopter" is the lead single (and it's magnificent), but I've been more enraptured by the jangly charms of "Revival," which casts religious enlightenment darkly. The narrator is "saved," but he's also enveloped in "all this darkness." You'll be back in the light in just two minutes, but you might wish you weren't.

5. Sufjan Stevens - I've gotta give Sufjan credit; dude was waaaaaay overexposed when he peaced out of the indie pop scene following his smash hit Illinois. And now he's returned with a fresh sound, determined not to merely rehash the weird folksiness that made him a household name (even one you couldn't pronounce). "I Walked" piles shitty-sounding electronic drums on top of a jumbled synth line. The results are unique, but not nearly as effective. Illinois cuts like "Chicago" and "Decatur" made Sufjan's fussy arrangements sound almost sleek; they augmented the track without sounding clumsy. Here, Sufjan strips down but sounds uncomfortable, like he doesn't know what to do with all the room. A less-than-memorable melody doesn't help matters. The Age of Adz comes out October 12th; we'll see if it brings the noise once again.

(NOTE: The Hype Machine updates its list of popular artists every hour. These artists may not appear in this order, or they may have changed entirely by the time you read this. Such is the internet). Continue...

Kids, What Are We Going to Do With These Kids Today!

A few weeks ago, I promised a post about what's wrong with kids today (a subject which has been the basis for an angry diatribe or two in my day). However, instead of some contrived analysis as to why the youth of today is so much worse than my generation (which, as you can imagine is a speech, that in the history of younger generations' relationships with their older counterparts, has never been omitted), I'd like to, in part, defend our young hedonists.

Well, not defend per se…let's be clear about something: I think it's just plain dumb that people (young or old) continue to systematically document all of their illicit and shameful acts online (sorry to sound like the spokesperson for some Council for the Preservation of Culture).

I think a whole lot of folks (young and old) would agree with the preceding contention. In fact, Eric Schmidt, the loose lipped CEO of Google (an apparently very large and important corporation--I can't for the life of me figure out what they do, besides sell ads and give me free email of course) said this past summer, that at some point today's youth will have to change their names or identities to escape their "cyber past."

First off, just changing names probably won't do the trick. There are countless companies that are working on cataloging everything on the internet (of which Google is probably the largest) as well as making great strides in facial recognition and image processing technology. So, as far as I can foresee, today's documenting pleasure-seekers are going to have a hard time deleting their shameful (not to me of course, just Christine O'Donnell, Sarah Palin and the like) and possibly felonious pasts.

Admittedly, one of the central tenets (and considerable driving force) of the internet is to collect and process all information (that of course includes those pics you posted on Facebook from your drunken post-high school prom party).

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Videogame Criticism Needs a New Magazine. Scratch That – It Needs A Magazine.

As a young antisocialite, I read gaming magazines until the edges softened and curled upward. Computer Gaming World, and later PC Gamer – these were my sacred texts. I pored over the full-cover screenshots and devoured column after column of previews, reviews and the rare state-of-the-industry feature. In the mid-90s, gaming was still a niche hobby and the media surrounding it read like trade literature, like model airplane or miniature train rags.

Gaming is different today, maturing rapidly as an industry and as an art form. For every big-budget retreading like Halo or Modern Warfare 2, there’s a Limbo, or a Portal , or a Braid – games deserving of the critical analysis usually reserved for high literature or cinema.

But we won’t find this criticism in the press; at least not in print media. Computer Gaming World is long gone, and magazines like Game Informer can verge on being glorified advertising boutiques. If games are art – and I believe they are – I want a magazine where they’re treated as such.

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The Language of Television is Universal

...no, not NBC/Universal, which is about to be acquired by cable giant Comcast, pending approval from the gummint. I mean, I'm as excited and confused by The Event as the next soul pining for the next Lost, but one analyst recently valued the company's flagship network at negative $600 million. At least they still have Sunday Night Football...

No, the appeal of television transcends any one network, provider, or conglomerate. As last year's Super Bowl showed, TV is still the best way to reach millions of people at a time, even in this age where pretty much everyone has an alternate way to access digital media, be it a computer or a phone or a gaming console or a microchip implanted at the base of the skull that projects content onto the backs of one's eyelids.

The point is, even in today's world where DVRs and Hulu and online streaming directly from the networks, gathering around the television set to watch a weekly program is becoming less and less of an acknowledged ritual. So what suddenly inspired me to magic together-bringing power of TV? Why, the season premiere of the hot new season of CBS's Undercover Boss (Sundays at 9pm), of course!

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At the Mountains of Madness- Part Ten: "Hands and Knees"

Listen
Do you want to read some spoilers?
Do you promise not to tell?, whoa oh, oh

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This Week on Audiosurf Radio – Wrong Side of the Bed Edition

Nothing about writing this week’s entry felt normal.  Internet issues (who knows what clogged the tubes?) prevented me from downloading the tracks in a reasonable amount of time, pushing back my writing schedule.  There are only two songs, which means fewer opportunities to compare within a given artists’ work or make unfair (yet hopefully amusing) comparisons between two disparate genres.  And further issues connecting to the Audiosurf serves meant I couldn’t cull any excellent post-ride comments from the community.

Wah wah wah.

So what can you expect from this week’s entry after all my grumbling?  Slightly longer breakdowns of the two tracks in question, both of which are from DJSimos.  His website features a lot of foreign text that my chugging Internet wouldn’t allow Google Chrome to translate.  If you’re not living your digital life on a virtual 56k modem like I am right now, I’m sure you could translate it and learn all about what drove this man to create music on a computer.  Get back to me if you do.  On second thought, don’t; I’d rather not be reminded of my technological inadequacies.

Hit the jump for an already off-kilter edition of This Week…

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A Decade of Dreck #32: Kaena: the Prophecy

Charge Shot!!! is celebrating the end of the decade in the most masochistic way we know how - by watching and writing about the 100 worst movies of the last ten years as defined by film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Click here to see RT's complete list, click here for more about the Decade of Dreck project, and click here to see all of the movies we've done so far.

I am a French Canadian-American, and quite proud of it. My ancestors came to New France in the seventeenth century, easily giving me a claim of having a family line that existed in (North) America the longest of most of my friends save those who can trace their descent back to the Mayflower or some such event. In fact, an ancestor of mine, one Charles Boivin was recorded as having fought the British at the Battle of Quebec during the Revolutionary War.

However, I will gladly denounce the steaming heap of crap that is the French Canadian-produced Kaena: the Prophecy. It's a great argument both for and against Quebec seceding from Canada.

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Thoughts of an Aspiring Music Snob: Week 75 - Donovan

Chris is trying to compensate for his lack of musical knowledge by immersing himself in one new artist each week. At the end of the week, he will write up a brief summary of his opinions. You can read about the origin and parameters of this project here.

In the 1960s Bob Dylan documentary Dont Look Back, there's a section of the film where Dylan and his "cats" hangs with Donovan and his gang. There are two scenes in particular worth watching. In the first, Dylan (possibly drunk) starts bitching and screaming about how someone threw a glass, and Donovan attempts to calm him down. It's a strange scene, and while Dylan comes across as a bit of a showboat, it's clear that his personality completely mows down that of the relatively passive Donovan's.

In the second scene (below), Donovan plays a quiet folk song, "To Sing For You," on a guitar. Dylan requests the guitar be passed to him, and immediately launches into "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." Both performances are fine, but Dylan's is far more electrifying, and the camera clearly captures Donovan's somewhat jealous expression as his young rival draws all eyes in the room to him. 

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After the Jump: Two and a Half Sheens

Subscribe to the podcast via the feed, or find us in the iTunes store!

We podcast, you listen. Yes?

This week, we talk about Netflix streaming, Facebook outages, the Stewart/Colbert rallies, downloadable games, redactions, and more!

See you next week!

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Sunday Reading: The Building Blocks of Prime Time

It’s Fall premiere season!  Each major television network is rolling out its Fall lineups in attempts to grab a slice of the ever-shifting ratings pie. 

Viewed as a whole, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff coming to the small screen this season.  Viewed up close, it’s easy to be underwhelmed by the recycled ideas and convoluted conceits.

However, Wired’s Scott Brown urges us not to be bothered by cliché.  “After all,” he writes in a recent issue of the magazine, “it’s often said (with varying degrees of seriousness) that there are only 10 stories total in the whole history of smoke-blowing, from Beowulf to Baywatch.”  He’s got a point.  Christopher Booker wrote an excellent book on the topic – though his magic number is a little different.

He even encourages a deep dive into TV Tropes.  Sure, it’s a slightly pretentious, super-nerdy wiki bursting at the seams with useless information, but where else are you going to read about how Captain Kirk never actually said “Beam Me Up, Scotty” and then learn about all other sorts of classic misquotations?

Brown believes we should embrace excessive tropes because we simply can’t escape them.  In the Age of the Internet, every reference ever is just a mouse-click away.  He credits the success of showrunners like Whedon, Abrams, MacFarlane, and Groening to their ability to meld fresh content with the familiar:  “They do so,” Brown argues, “in recognition of an incontrovertible fact: We all speak Trope now.”

Please excuse me while I go waste an afternoon on TV Tropes.

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The Fist-Pump Gazette #9: "How the hell did I wake up and my hair's still done?"

If the recap of last week's show is to serve as any indication of what plotlines are to come (as it always has before), it appears that we're finally through with the Ronnie and Sammi drama. It's been replaced with Angelina drama, which has always proved dependable and entertaining. But now we get to focus less on how much her roommates hate her and more on how she plays her sometime boyfriend Jose for a fool by first leading him on, then refusing him birthday sex... then lying about it later, telling everyone in the house that they had smashed.

File this one under "It seems like a bad idea now, and will definitely be revealed as a bad idea later." But before Ang reaps the full consequences from her actions, it's time to explore some more relationship drama. We are presented with a sampling of one in every capacity: failed (Vinny), burgeoning (Pauly and Rocio), and advanced (Jenni and Tom, who arrived just for the week). And then of course there's Sam and Ron, who appear to have fully fallen back into their old habits. Who knows, maybe some people are capable of real change. And sometimes Miami's just the place to inspire it.

The only ones left out of the couples party are Mike (who's making the most of the situation) and Nicole (who only succeeds in getting drunk, interrupting Jenni and Tom, and ending up in Vinny's bed again). Read on to find out what scandal ensued!

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Saturday Morning TV: 8BITS

Who are all these tiny studios capable of producing awesome CG animation?  It’s kind of ridiculous how many quality shorts are out there.  Shorts like this one.  Buckle up for some crazy retro action with a Wario-looking dude, a hero in boxers, and a lady painted up to vaguely look like Zelda.

8BITS_hd720 from 8BCREW on Vimeo.

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The Rise of the $4 Album: A Success Story (So Far)

Charge Shot!!! has written at length about Amazon's marvelous MP3 store. Many people (myself included) are beginning to see Amazon as the preferred alternative to iTunes, especially as Apple veers off into stranger and stranger territory. The store's growth has been slow but steady - the New York Times reports that it now has 12 percent of the market, compared to iTunes' behemothic 70 percent. 

Amazon's low-priced specials have also managed to have a variety of effects on the musical marketplace. Last August, when the Arcade Fire's new album The Suburbs hit the stores, Amazon offered it as a digital download for $3.99 during the first week. Amazon had previously done this with Vampire Weekend's Contra earlier in the year. Both The Suburbs and Contra managed to hit number one on Billboard charts the week of their release, and the analysts are willing to bet that Amazon's price deductions played no small role in the albums' success. 

This seems like a win-win situation. Consumers are buying music at cheap prices. Bands are selling lots of albums. What could possibly be amiss? Follow me through the jump to find out. 

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Playing Games Wasn’t Always So Easy

Has this happened to you? 

It’s late.  You’ve been playing the same game for hours.  It’s sucked you in with its inspired fictional world and fast, exciting gameplay.  All of a sudden, you hit a wall.  Literally and/or figuratively, you’re stuck.  The boss/puzzle/obstacle in your path simply will not budge.  Too angry to discern why this is so, you hurl the controller in frustration, hopefully not destroying the over-priced piece of plastic.

You’re not alone.  Nerd rage, specifically videogame induced rage, dates back to before Jumpman first took a barrel to the face courtesy of one Donkey Kong.  When witnessed, it can be funny, uncomfortable, and even downright scary.  When experienced, it can make you question why the hell anyone would bother to play games when punching yourself in the face is just a moment away.

The industry’s going through a bit of an identity crisis on the matter of difficulty.  On one hand, you’ve got the neophyte-friendly “Hey, Let Me Play That For You” mode in New Super Mario Bros. Wii; on the other: sadistic stuff like Demon’s Souls.  Designers can’t seem to decide if players want escapist coddling or no-nonsense, character-building difficulty.

Should the act of play really make your blood boil?  To figure that out, it’s worth exploring out why games are difficult in the first place. 

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Still Going Strong: The Last Wave of DS Games

I've been a stalwart supporter of the Nintendo DS since the day I bought my first DS Lite: the touchscreen helped speed adoption of them in every handheld device ever, the system appeals to kids and adults and gamers and non-gamers alike, and the software library overcame a shaky first year to become one of the strongest of any game system in memory.

We're coming up on the system's sixth anniversary in a couple of months - by this point in their lifespan, most systems are far past their prime. Even though the DS has a successor waiting in the wings, the games haven't gone downhill yet. Read on to see what you're going to be playing up until you unbox that shiny new 3DS.

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Robot Skin, Emotional Phones, and Omni-aerial Planes

Every day, exciting and inspiring news from the tech and science world comes out.  This week I wanted to mention a few of these lesser discussed murmurings.  

This weblog's venerable podcast, After The Jump, consistently discusses such news, including the recent breakthrough of a computer with hyper sensitive skin. Nevertheless, I thought it was cool enough for two mentions here on Charge-Shot.

The skin, based on "organic electronics" (whatever that means, sounds like an oxymoron to me) is 1,000 times more sensitive than that of a human, allowing a robot to differentiate between distinct substances. Without this kind of breakthrough, a robot would have no trouble, say, picking up a wooden egg. Give it the real thing though, and you'd quickly see that the robot's ability to perform simple tasks is not all it's cracked up to be (I'd like to point out that the entire preceding run-on sentence was constructed with the sole purpose of the pun at the end, I apologize to any and all remaining readers…I just can't help but make my little yokes...).


In any case, this major breakthrough will probably contribute to developments in computing and artificial limbs (and other medical applications) in addition to robotics.

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Am I Stuck on Repeat?

Kenyon College, 2005.

It's late August, 2005. I'm returning to campus after the first of many Wal-Mart trips, this time with my mom in tow. Orientation for Kenyon College's Class of 2009 has just begun, and I'm so nervous I could puke. Excited too, but mostly nervous. I slide my burned copy of Okkervil River's Black Sheep Boy into the CD player because it's a sad record, and I'm sad, too. The band's cover of the title track fades out and the second track, "For Real," begins. Will Sheff's palm-muted acoustic guitar tiptoes through my speakers, fighting bravely against a rising tide of feedback. Then he sings:

Some nights I thirst for real blood
For real knives
For real cries

A few seconds later, a jackhammer of distorted guitar annihilates the verse, and Sheff belts out the chorus, this time a full octave higher and a good bit louder:

I really miss what really did exist
When I held your throat so tight

I pound on the steering wheel as the band stomps around in the background. I don't remember the look on my mom's face because all I can remember is the anger, the fear, and the buzzing excitement of that moment and that song. It's a feeling I can't help but be swept up in every time I listen to the track, even five years and a month after it first happened.

After essentially steering clear of indie rock for the past two years, probably, I've reunited gloriously with my long-lost friend in the past couple of months. No more hip-hop, no more electronica; give me four dudes and some fucking guitars. And maybe a cute girl bass player.

Broken Social Scene in Brooklyn in 2006.

I've met some new people in this old paradigm (Surfer Blood, Spoon, Smog, Best Coast), but I've really relished getting reacquainted with the ones I really missed. I probably hadn't listened to Broken Social Scene for half a decade when I heard "Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl" on the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack playing in my friend's car. I had forgotten just how much I adored the song's snowy, psychedelic swooning; I've never been a seventeen-year-old girl, but I couldn't help feeling like one during those glorious four minutes and thirty-six seconds. I was glad I'd kept You Forgot It in People on my iPod.

Then I gave that album a listen I confess I never really gave it in the first place. And then I loaded Broken Social Scene's self-titled 2005 record - the only I really loved - back onto my iPod, and then the nostalgia train was fairly impossible to stop.

First it was the ones that'd never really left my mind: the National, Arcade Fire, Neutral Milk Hotel. Then those more resolutely buried: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, TV on the Radio, Okkervil. And then the ones I really had to blow the dust off of: the Good Life, even friggin' Bright Eyes. Then, God help us all, came the pop punk.

And suddenly I'm blasting "I'm Not Okay" by My Chemical Romance as I skulk the halls of my high school during my junior year, trying not to look too smugly downtrodden. Now I'm up at my lake house wearing out my copy of Atticus: Dragging the Lake II because the Rice Lake Wal-Mart doesn't carry Tell All Your Friends, and my sixteen-year-old self needs some way to listen to "You're So Last Summer" on repeat. And then I'm suffering through my last summer before college, listening to Relient K's Mmhmm in my car, my shoulders quaking as I try to control my sobbing for a girl I've never really gotten over.

At which point I realize that I haven't really gone anywhere, and I'm still sitting here in my bed, writing this article on my MacBook. And it dawns on me that, to my profound dismay, I've become a nostalgia fiend. I've transformed this vital art form I love so much into a twenty-three-year long home video of treasured memories. I've turned into one of those old fogies with the shit-eating grins, blabbering on about how "Yummy Yummy Yummy, I've Got Love in my Tummy" reminds them of high school and how much simpler things used to be. I've become the musical equivalent of Glenn Beck, crying including.

How did this happen? Will I be doomed to listen to the same five or six indie rock records over and over until I'm dead? How did I turn into my parents when I'm still living in their house?!

Well, "still" would imply that I never moved away. I did move away, in fact, for four sometimes idyllic, often frustrating years at Kenyon College.

Okkervil River at Little Brother's in Columbus in 2006.
I was actually at this show.

That's the thing about nostalgia: it's inherently deceptive. Because, just like I keep telling the imaginary stickman Republican in my head, the past wasn't all that great. I like the excitement of my freshman year I feel when I listen to "For Real," but I don't really enjoy the homesickness or the dread at leaving behind everything I'd ever loved or become accustomed to. And even then I was nostalgic, for something I never even felt and probably didn't have the depth of experience to sympathize with:

I really miss what really did exist

And do I really enjoy the second-hand heartbreak I feel when I listen to Relient K, or the embarrassment that I feel admitting that I listen to Relient K? No!

Well, I certainly don't enjoy the latter. But maybe some part of me does enjoy the heartbreak; maybe I like the feeling of something authentic, something real, that came before college and political science classes and blogs made me cynical and jaded. Maybe I just want something that really did exist.

But isn't that a sad thing? Isn't it heartbreaking to think that the rest of my life will be so artificial and dull that I'll never experience anything as deeply as I did in high school?

And that's when I decide to pull the record out of that never-ending groove. I don't keep my old records locked in the proverbial attic, but I learn to appreciate them in a new way. I pay attention to the poetry of Will Sheff's words on that Okkervil River records, and I even listen to their newer albums. I learn to appreciate Broken Social Scene's subtle instrumental explorations rather than just wallow in their Emotions. And I listen to those pop punk records a few times and put them away, because that's just not music I can listen to without a hint of irony anymore.

In short, I move forward. Because I refuse to accept that my best times are behind me. Because I know that the past isn't the only thing that's real. Continue...

Halo: Reach Review: Good, But Good Enough?

It’s hard to imagine gaming without Halo. Since 2001, the game has defined first-person shooters on consoles, practically becoming shorthand for the entire genre.

Halo: Reach, a prequel to the monumental franchise, will be the last entry by its current developers, Bungie. This particular space marine is hanging up his helmet: no more will he pull the left trigger to throw a grenade or mash B to bludgeon with the butt of his rifle.

The established Halo formula is graying in a pleasantly distinguished way, but it’s nine years old – that’s roughly a century in industry time. Halo: Reach epitomizes a franchise; it is Halo at its best, and quite possibly the best it can be. But is that good enough?

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Movie Review: The Town

When I first saw a preview for The Town, I thought, "Gee, that looks like an interesting movie. I sure would have liked to see it... if I wasn't just shown the whole darn thing in that trailer!" I mean, I'm all for stirring up audience excitement leading up to a big fall release, but the moviegoing experience just isn't as fun when you've already seen every plot twist and critical moment before you even buy a ticket.

But, to be perfectly honest, seeing an extensive preview for a movie like The Town doesn't impact the movie that much because the plot is straightforward/simple enough and the critical moments are somewhat predictable anyway. But even those potential drawbacks don't take away from the movie that much, seeing as its purpose is not to keep its audience guessing with convoluted twists and turns, but rather to lead them through the streets of Charlestown, MA following co-writer/director/star Ben Affleck on a wild and crazy caper. And, as far as capers go, it was pretty darn satisfying.

The Town is a basic cops vs. robbers story following the career of four professional bank robbers (including Oscar winner Ben Affleck and Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner) as they do what they do best. Their lives are complicated when their leader (Affleck) begins a relationship with a woman they took as a hostage (Rebecca Hall) in the beginning of the film. Meanwhile, an FBI Agent with a debonair 1960s ad-agency flair (Jon Hamm) tries to catch them. Throw in Affleck's old flame/Renner's sister - oxycodone addict with a heart of gold Blake Lively - and things really start to heat up!

Find out more after the jump. But not if you don't want spoilers. Cuz there are gonna be some spoilers.

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At the Mountains of Madness- Part Nine: "The Beautiful Girls"

We've compiled an essay about how terrible your chosen profession is. It's called "Nuremberg at Charge Shot!!!" and it follows the jump.

Spoilers, you fascist pig!

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This Week on Audiosurf Radio – Do the Robot Merengue

Growing up, my generally listened to Latin music in two specific situations: road trips and moving furniture.  After hearing the same Top 40 hits for two hours, crossing a state line warranted a scan for the local Latin station, which would be followed by upbeat car-dancing until the commercials started or we became bored.  Moving furniture required uptempo yet non-distracting tracks, something with enough energy to help you push that couch up the stairs but without the potential for sing-a-longs that might take your eye off the prize. 

Playing some Arturo Sandoval in my high school jazz band expanded my horizons a bit, opening my eyes to everything from Claudia Acuña to the Gipsy Kings.  Still, I have a nostalgic fondness for straightforward Latin music, so I’m pleased to find Trafiko on this week’s slate. 

Perhaps straightforward is a little inaccurate, as the two Trafiko selections also highlight the group’s inclinations toward reggae.  You’ll be hearing plenty of backbeat guitar this week, as well as more jazz flute than you can shake a flautist at. 

Spicing things up there’s also an electronica track from Ejay Ivan Lac.  What exactly is an “ejay”?  Find out after the jump.

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A Decade of Dreck #31: The Adventures of Pluto Nash

Charge Shot!!! is celebrating the end of the decade in the most masochistic way we know how - by watching and writing about the 100 worst movies of the last ten years as defined by film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Click here to see RT's complete list, click here for more about the Decade of Dreck project, and click here to see all of the movies we've done so far.

Eddie Murphy used to rule American pop culture; from stand-up, to movies, even to pop music Murphy's dominance was unquestioned. Then something happened and one day Eddie Murphy woke up to discover himself something of a punchline. Sometime around the mid-1990's, Murphy transformed from one of the baddest, most controversial, and groundbreaking comedians of his era to a star of lame family comedies involving fatsuits and multiple roles.

 In spite of this however, Murphy's films continued to make boffo box office despite their shittiness. Murphy is probably dead inside, but he's crying all the way to the bank. He may be a sellout, but he's a sellout whose movies rake in tons of money.

The Adventures of Pluto Nash is not one of those movies.

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Thoughts of an Aspiring Music Snob: Week 74 - Blondie

Chris is trying to compensate for his lack of musical knowledge by immersing himself in one new artist each week. At the end of the week, he will write up a brief summary of his opinions. You can read about the origin and parameters of this project here.

I was raised on the idea that music should act as some sort of definitive artistic statement - a timeless message that will inspire and provoke listeners throughout the ages. I'm still sort of keen on that concept, but the past few weeks have got me thinking about how that might not be the only way to approach music. Sometimes, what might appear to be shallow artifice can have just as much depth as the pretensions of art that tries to be thought-provoking and deep.

Just like last week's Michael Jackson, no one is ever going to mistake the musicians of Blondie as some sort of high-art gurus. Coming into fruition during the turmoil of the Punk Revolution, the group aims neither for the High Art of mid-70s prog rock, nor the wild nihilism of punk. Instead, they just put together collections of catchy songs.

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After the Jump: More Like a Flak Jacket Than a Bra

Subscribe to the podcast via the feed, or find us in the iTunes store!

Check out those 3D boobs!

This week, we talk about Microsoft’s actions in Russia, Craiglist’s shutting down of its Adult Services section, the MusOpen project’s windfall, robot skin, beach adventures, violent video game problems, and more!

See you next week!

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Sunday Reading: Celebreadymade Art

I’ve already shared my fascination with James Franco’s bizarre career-slash-performance-art thing he has going on, but now it seems there may be a movement larger than just one man’s transformation into living art exhibit.

To examine this trend, Slate’s Ben Davis fashioned a slide show of what he dubs “celebreadymade” art.  His term marries Duchamp’s “readymade” art with the celebrity-focused work of Andy Warhol.  “Today’s artists,” argues Davis, “take Warhol’s affection for the tropes of celebrity culture to its logical conclusion, using famous people themselves as found objects.”

The beau of Davis’s pop art ball is Italy’s Francesco Vezzoli.  His modus operandi is putting celebrities in parodies of celebrity-like situations: Courtney Love and Helen Mirren in a promo for a film version of Caligula that isn’t real, Sharon Stone in a satire of political advertising, and Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams fighting over a nonexistent perfume dubbed Greed.  After Vezzoli staged an absurdist musical performance starring Lady Gaga, he told MTV, “My wish is that the entertainment industry makes love more often with the art industry.”  So he’s basically playing the role of postmodern matchmaker.

Perhaps why I’m so intrigued by this wave of pop performance art is that, after all, crafting a successful piece of entertainment is in itself an art.  Why can’t we frame that and put it on display?

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The Fist-Pump Gazette #8: "You Do Stupid Things When You're Drunk"

Let's start right at the beginning: the title quote comes from Angelina describing her last-episode hookup with Vinny, the guy she ostensibly hates the most in the house. Also the guy who gave her the nickname "The Staten Island Dump." But both were drunk, so neither need take responsibility for their actions. It makes for a great A-Story, summed up in the following quote:

"Angelina has proven the ho equation."

Mike plays professor and expounds on the theory that if a guy (Jose) treats a girl (Angelina) right - i.e. takes her out on dates, buys her gifts - he won't get any action. But if a guy (Vinny) takes that same girl and calls her names, demeans her in front of her friends, and generally makes his disgust known, then, bam! instant smoosh.

Find out what other commonly held theories are proven true or false after the jump.

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Saturday Morning TV: Bert and Ernie Are SO Street

Sometimes I’m amazed by the stuff I’ve somehow missed on YouTube.  I might have to buy this song now, too.

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The Story About Ping: A Look at iTunes' Foray into Social Networking

I tend to react to new iTunes updates with a mix of annoyance and dread. Every so often, these updates will come with some sort of element that actually does make my life easier, but more often than not they're riddled with useless extras. Let's face it - Genius playlists are horrible, and nobody has ever used Cover Flow in their life.  

Nonetheless, Apple moves forward, confident in the falsehood that consumers want iTunes to be their go-to center for all forms of media, rather than a convenient way to organize their digital music. In the past several updates, iTunes has given me locations for my movies, television shows and books. I currently have all three of these categories completely empty.

Now, with the latest release of iTunes 10, Apple has dipped its toes into the dark and murky waters of social networking. Their new feature, cutely titled "Ping," is supposed to connect iTunes users with each other worldwide, allowing us to judge our friends' horrible tastes in music and be connected to artists . How does such a daring foray into the unknown hold up? Find out after the jump.

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Battle.blog – With A Little Help From My Friends

One thing I never did in the old Battle.blog: play with people I know in real life.  I have some old high school buddies who offered to help me out, but my irregular playing schedule and the eventual drop-off of the column kept our coalition from ever forming.  Thankfully, some of my colleagues have taken a shining to Starcraft II, so I am not without companions in my quest for online dominance of a game at which I will assuredly never dominate.

It’s been an interesting experience playing with Rob and Andrew (and I look forward to adding Jordasch to my team roster at some point).  We all play differently, with varying degrees of seriousness.  Some of us watch pro replays all the time.  Some of us take losses harder than others.  Sometimes, all one of us is looking for is a chance to berate our workers.

In most cases, however, we all agree on one thing: winning is tantamount.  Until proven otherwise, our opponents are faceless degenerates in need of a good digital pounding (…that sort of sounds pornographic) thrashing.  Whether it’s all three of us or just a pair, our triumvirate is dedicated to the liquidation of enemy forces at all costs. 

Andrew and I recently joined forces against a duo of Zerg abominations.  Strap in.  It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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25 Super Years of Super Mario

Twenty-five years ago this week, Nintendo released Super Mario Bros.  To call its influence on interactive entertainment “mammoth” would be an understatement.  Since its launch, the original SMB was the top-selling videogame of all time until it was dethroned last year by Wii Sports of all things.  Mario is still gaming’s most beloved ambassador, even though people now probably see more FarmVille cows a day than goombas. 

One thing Sony and Microsoft will never have on the Big N is nostalgia, which the company cultivates as Miyamoto might his prized garden.  To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the plumber’s first adventure through the Mushroom Kingdom, Nintendo released this video retrospective of all the major entries in Mario canon.  They’re even going to rerelease Super Mario All-Stars for the Wii.  It’s sort of like George Lucas and Star Wars, except Miyamoto isn’t out to ruin your childhood.

Got any favorite Mario memories?  Share them in our comments section.  I, for one, would’ve liked to see some love for Yoshi’s Island in here.

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Hulu Plus: Where’s the Beef?

You know Hulu, right? That Web site that lets you stream TV shows over the Internet?

Well, as of a couple months ago, they've decided to both expand their offerings and make more money via a service called Hulu Plus. At the moment, it’s still in an “invite only” mode that prohibits just anyone from signing up, but in theory when launched the service is going to offer all of the normal Hulu stuff in high-definition, and also original content, and also it will stream to just about every device on Earth. In time, Hulu will replicate the Netflix streaming model – as much content as you can to every device that is capable of it.

In the meantime, though, the Hulu Plus previews leaves some things to be desired. It lives up to the letter of its promise, but it hasn’t yet reached its full potential. Read on for the details.

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Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Lose Yourself, and the merciful end

In the grand tradition of Charge-Shot!!! writers reviewing shows they end up hating - or just hating themselves for kinda liking - Jordasch has decided to tackle HBO's Entourage, simultaneously the most satisfying and infuriating show on the network. Because reviewing the show is a largely fruitless effort at this point, he's decided simply to explain it, character by character.

Drama: As any halfway decent finale should do, this week's episode of Entourage brought each of the series' individual plotlines to a head...sort of. They already did that with Drama's plotline on last week's episode, so the only Johnny bits we see (ewww) are a few mentions of how great his monkey cartoon is going to be and shots of him freaking out about "Baby Bro."

Vince: Most of this week's creative reserves - talk about about scarce resources! - this week went towards Vince's drug-induced collapse. And we do get to see Vince legitimately freak out this week, either because the makeup girl actually showed up or Adrian Grenier saves up all his (meager) talent for the last episode of each season. At the end of the fifth season, we got to see him blow up at E for being a bad manager, and this season, we get to see him blow up at E - and several other people - for being a bad friend. This takes place at an intervention the entourage has staged for Vince, which he of course walks out on because he thinks the rest of them are acting like pussies. And then he goes to Eminem's party, and Eminem punches him in the face.  Yes, this was another in a long line of Entourage's braindead, inexplicable celebrity cameos (John Cleese, WTF), but seeing Vince get clocked by Slim Shady was probably one of the most satisfying moments of the season.

Elsewhere, Vince and Sasha broke up over her determination to, you know, be a porn star. Also, the finale's big reveal came in the form of a police officer discovering a bag of coke on Vince after Eminem's bodyguards put him in the hospital. Viewers not suffering from amnesia will recall that this is exactly the same big reveal as last week's episode.

Turtle: Deus ex machina, Entourage-style! Football player, who had previously - and inexplicably - threatened to buy Carlos out of his tequila company, relents and promises to invest the five million dollars needed to expand the factory. But because this is Entourage, a sudden, unmotivated change in plotting must be accompanied by a threat of physical violence. See, a 180 degree turn by a character is totally understandable if that character threatens to beat the shit out of another character should they "fuck them over." Plus, creator Doug Ellin can sleep at night, undisturbed by the realization that he's written a script that would be laughed at in a 100-level drama class. After his fifth bottle of Avion Tequila, that is.

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Oops.

Ari: It's pretty much the pits for Ari at this point. The whole town thinks he's a douchebag (or now has evidence of it), he's lost his shot at bringing an NFL team to L.A., and now the unflappable Mrs. Ari wants a break. Ari is informed of this last bit of news over the phone as Lady Gaga (oh wait, that's Christina Aguilera) sings in the background for Mrs. Ari's would-be surprise birthday party.

I've wondered essentially since the beginning of the show why Mrs. Ari stays with her husband despite how much she complains about his behavior. I content myself, I guess, with the fact that Ari constantly professes his love for his wife in the sincerest way he can. So I don't find it completely plausible that she would abandon Ari now, when he's at his lowest point. Is she really so shocked by his behavior? The characterization doesn't really make sense, considering Ari has never hidden his homophobic/chauvinist behavior from his wife. But both Perrey Reeves and Jeremy Piven are talented enough performers to pull off this bit of domestic strife. Piven in particular manages to say volumes with a simple incredulous stare. Reeves never gets nearly as much good material as Piven, however, because the show has made it clear that they don't want her character to exist independent of Ari. For God's sake, they don't give her a fucking name! Am I the only one who thinks that's ugly and chauvinistic rather than cute or clever?

Eric: E's dinner with Sloan's father, Terrence (played by the always-unpredictable Malcolm McDowell), takes a turn for the worse when he takes E to task for his seeming laziness at work. Eric, you probably don't remember or care, is an inexplicably successful agent at Sloan's godfather's agency. Sloan's godfather, who was played by veteran actor George Segal in season six, has not appeared in a single episode of season seven, hopefully because Segal's found better work. But dude has been absent this season, leading Scotty Lavin to conclude that the agency is ripe to be taken over. Eric, who initially balked at Lavin's offer to bring him in to the deal, accepts after the dinner. And, of course, we know he's worried about Vince because somebody told him to grow out his facial hair slightly. Good thing he didn't have to act worried.

Departing Words: I haven't mentioned Eric for the last three weeks, and no one who reads this column has noticed. This is either because nobody actually reads my column, which would be my conclusion if not for the few Facebook "Likes" I get each week, or because Eric is such a dreadfully dull character that even in a show with only five main characters, his absence in a plot summary doesn't raise a red flag. Speaking of which, this thoroughly unmemorable character is actually a good jumping off point for my closing thoughts on this, the seventh season of Entourage. As is my idiom, I'll pick out a few characteristics of the show that make it particularly insufferable and explain my rationale in my typical, winningly sarcastic fashion:

• It's forgettable - It hardly needs to be said, but Entourage is almost absurdly unmemorable. At its best, Entourage shows a bunch of pretty people having more fun than you. But even then, I've always been at a loss when trying to recall the specifics of what happened on an episode, or even across a whole season. The plotlines on Entourage are so hackneyed and forgettable, in fact, that resorting or reusing them has never aroused the ire of the show's dedicated fan base of bros. It's like the stock market, as we watch the fortunes of Entourage's cast rise and fall: Turtle's cool, Turtle's a loser; Vince is successful, then he's a flop; Drama's got a big show, then he's back to being a failure; Eric is boring, then Eric is more boring.
• It's ugly and hypocritical: The Entourage writing staff has no problem using "This Character Doesn't Want to be a Pussy" as a dramatic motivator again and again. Now, if we're to believe the Entourage Wikipedia page's section on "Themes" (HA!), this is just an example of the characters' intense "Male Friendship." But it's really an indicator of just how macho and insecure the whole show is. For the most part, Entourage is almost startlingly unaware of how ugly its characters' behavior is. And when it does point out just how poorly Vince and the boys treat the opposite sex, the show just seems hypocritical and preachy. Take this week's episode, when Vince strikes out with a girl at Eminem's party because she thinks he's a womanizing asshole. For purposes of the plot, we're supposed to side with the girl. But would that character have been portrayed as anything but a bitch last season? We, for the most part, are meant to admire Vince's ability to fuck anything that moves. But now, when Vince has actually been in a dedicated relationship since the beginning of the season (with a porn star, granted), we're supposed to wag our fingers at him? Gimme a break, Entourage. If you want to be a satire, you need to at least implicitly critique your characters' behavior.
• It could be so much better: I've waxed poetic about an Entourage free of Vince and the boys (or at least Vince and Eric). And yes, in its current form, Entourage minus everyone but Ari would be infinitely more tolerable. But imagine, if you will, a Battlestar Galactica-esque reboot of Entourage in, say, thirty years. You dump the original series' dated, smug stupidity (because the early part of this century has been nothing if not smug and stupid) in favor of a real, biting take on the Hollywood nightmare. You replace the noncommittal tone (Is it fun? Is it serious? What popular rap song can we play to convey what the audience should be feeling?) with a sort of consistent ambivalence: Hollywood's fun, Entourage 2.0 would say, but it's a killer. And, best of all, you recast every role because, after all, the original stars of Entourage will have been gathering dust on the bottom shelf of the metaphorical bargain bin for the past couple of decades. That's an Entourage I'd be excited to watch. But this isn't one even I'll be masochistic enough to take up again.

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A Spiritual Pause

In honor of the Jewish High Holy days (which began with the celebration of the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, last Thursday, and continue on to Yom Kippur, the day of repentance, starting Friday at sundown), please find two musings below.  Both were written during the incredibly important time between these two holidays. We take these 10 days, as I was taught at a young age, as an opportunity to ponder the larger questions…these, the "Days of Awe," enable us to see our world and lives from a new and enlightened perspective.

Sitting in services on Thursday, I, like many others in the congregation, took the opportunity to contemplate the bigger questions in life. Focusing my thoughts, I came to the familiar revelation that the universe is pretty darn big.

Pretty big is an understatement. The universe is massive. Listening to and participating in prayers that praise Hashem (the creator of life, the universe and everything) and exclaim the joy of a fruitful relationship with it, has always struck me as strange.

How could something so large and powerful as to create the universe be concerned with my relatively insignificant life (yes, I know, I granted the premise that there is an all powerful being, let's keep the Cartesian arguments to a minimum though)? Now I don't want this post to become a discussion of the existence of an all powerful being and religion, so I think the point I'm trying (albeit quite clumsily) to make is that we, as humans, must confront the dichotomy between the limitlessness of the universe and our own inflated egos.

Yes, we are minuscule in relation to the size of the universe, our galaxy, our solar system, but we can still appreciate that we are part of a whole. That's really what this whole thing is about, being part of a whole. Understanding that we are individual parts of many wholes is, to me, a calming source of wisdom and strength.

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Everything Chris Klein Says In The Legend of Chun-Li

For those of you who have been with the blog for a while, you may remember way back in March 2009 I promised that some day some poor soul would compile all of the terrible things Chris Klein says in Street Fighter: the Legend of Chun-Li.

That promised day has arrived.

Submitted for the approval of Charge Shot!!!, I call this video...

*throws sand on campfire*

"Everything Chris Klein Says In The Legend of Chun-Li".


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Facebook and the New Art Of Keeping In Touch

So there’s this girl. Never met her. But we’re Facebook friends. She sent the request, I confirmed it. I now know she likes Dan Brown novels, Fight Club and Van Morrison. I know she studied art history. I see the trite, two-tone self-portrait, shot with one arm from above.

This is the worst thing you can do on Facebook – know something about someone without really knowing anything at all. It makes you want to make good on your promise to pull the plug on The Social Network. Go dark to the world of strangers.

Then you hear from an old friend. Then you meet them for lunch. Then, perhaps, you get married.

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Souvenirs from Burning Man: The Dubstep Revolution

I've never really kept up to date on the hot new trends surrounding the dance music scene. Let's face it, my favorite bands hit their peak close to 30 years ago. They also tend to play to gigantic sold-out arenas rather than cramped, dark, sweaty dance floors. So the first night I spent at Burning Man, I was immediately inundated with a barrage of new and interesting sounds.

One of the Burning Man veterans in our camp had brought some dubstep back from the playa and played it for me several times. The hourlong studio mix by Rastatronics took the listener on a journey through dark rhythms, brooding synthesized melodies, syncopated beats, and throbbing sub-bass. I know all sound is vibration, but usually all that vibrates are the haircells inside your ears. But when you listen to dubstep, you feel like your whole body is vibrating to the beat.

 My friend told me about how this type of music reminded him of Burning Man, but I couldn't come close to understanding the scope. If a single set of speakers can make a single listener's body vibrate, imagine what multiple 50,000+ watt sound systems playing at full volume from 9pm to 9am can do to the entire desert. Burning Man has a pulse, and it can be measured in dubstep rhythms. Suffice it to say, even at one week removed from the event, I have trouble sleeping without feeling the ground shake in syncopation.

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