“F” you Siffie! “F” you morning, noon, and night for making the Ghost Hunters sell out!
Caprica, SGU Canceled. Anyone surprised?
As you’re probably beginning to guess, I’m a sci-fi (spelled properly!) addict. At least when I have the resources available to me. Books, television, movies, they’re all good fixes for me. I’ve been known to love some really bad sci-fi, and hate some supposedly really good sci-fi, but what disappoints me is the failure of successful franchises because of stupid decisions in the pre-production stages. Although I thought I posted on another blog of mine about these two particular shows, I can’t find the post, so I will start over here: Caprica and Stargate Universe died on account of they were stupid. (There’s a non-sci-fi movie reference there, can you spot it?)
Caprica is was the prequel spin-off series for the relatively recently ended Battlestar Galactica television series that set all sorts of standards for science fiction on television. Siffie promised us a television series that took place 50 years before the events of BSG, dealing with the Adama and Greystone families, and how their successes and failures lead to the First Great Cylon War. This is all fine and dandy, but they also promised us something that made absolutely no sense whatsoever when taking the just ended BSG series into account: the creation of the Cylons.
Sometimes I don’t feel all that bright. A lot of times, I miss a lot of details that could be important. And finally, I confess that I only watched a few episodes of Caprica. But what I can’t understand is how the 2,000+ years of Cylon history from BSG could be squeezed into the 50 years between Caprica and BSG. The only possible loophole they have is the Cylon prophecy in BSG that “this has all happened before, it shall all happen again” and huge amount of genetic and archaeological stupidity in both human and Cylon races. Perhaps this huge oversight was going to be cleared up at some point in a later season that we’ll never get to see. But the thing that strikes me most about this glaring oversight? The fact that the same writers, directors, and producers were involved in both series! What, did all of them suddenly forget what the hell they had been preaching for the last two seasons of BSG? Maybe humanity really is that stupid…
What I can’t stand, however, is when a television series is conceptualized without taking into account the successes and failures of other, similar series. While Stargate Universe was beginning to grow on me, like a tumor, it had some significant fundamental flaws that again could have been corrected in pre-production. But before I get to that, I need you to understand why I’m going to do my best to rip this show a new asshole. Excuse my French.
Way back in 1994, before I stopped liking Kurt Russell, came along an interesting movie with the premise that we’d get to know fairly well. The movie was Stargate, and the premise was that an ancient portal to other worlds was found buried in Egypt and taken to a secure U.S. military facility for study. That tickles all the right funny bones with me: you have archaeology and history (thank you Dr. Jones!), the military, and you have science fiction. The portal of course lead to another world where humans had been enslaved by aliens that utilized the names of ancient Egyptian gods. Hell, the film even had French Stewart! The film had a great plot, pretty good acting, and damned good special effects, and I was eagerly awaiting a sequel.
Which never really came… But I got over that.
Then in 1997, Stargate SG-1 came along, and it pissed me off for two reasons, one of which I forgave more readily than the other. The forgivable crime was that it was exclusive to the Showtime television network, which I couldn’t get. It wasn’t their fault, it was possibly mine for not having the correct channel package, and certainly my cable provider’s for not allowing me to have all the channels like I desired. The second crime, which I eventually got over, was the fact that everyone got recast. I was hoping, at the time, that they’d just pick up with the same cast and make a television series based around it, but I was sorely disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, I was and still am a big Richard Dean Anderson fan, and have been since MacGyver debuted back in the 80’s, but he didn’t seem at all right for Jack O’Neill. So, I vowed to boycott the show, by not even trying to get Showtime, despite the good ratings a number of my friends gave it.
Skip ahead a few years, factor in the rise and fall of the unrelated television show Farscape, the move from Showtime to Siffie, and the introduction of the spin-off Stargate Atlantis. I’m going to go through some of these items very, very briefly, but trust me, they’re related. We’re almost back to SGU, I promise! In 1999, my buddy told me about this new series from the Jim Henson company called Farscape that might be right up my alley. I listened, I watched, I wasn’t impressed. At first. But the series did nothing but get better the longer it went on, and the main character was played by Ben Browder, and it also starred Claudia Black, both of which I loved and both of which eventually went on to play roles in Stargate SG-1. In fact, they’re the reason I started watching SG-1 even though I had started watching Stargate Atlantis regularly. Once I got hooked on SG-1 with Colonel Mitchell’s (Browder) team, I found that the various team members had lots of likable quirks and they obviously worked well together. So, I started watching the old episodes whenever I got the chance, and I decided that my hatred of the series for all those years was completely unfounded. I felt ashamed, and I’m still trying to catch episodes I missed to this day. Sooner or later, I’ll have to buy the complete series boxed set…
Stargate Atlantis tickled my history, archaeology, and mythology funny bones, and drew me in with quirky characters and awesome stories. To this day, I’m not sure who my single favorite character on the show was, but I can tell you who my least favorite was: Richard Woolsey played by Robert Picardo. (Small Rant) I know that Picardo had made numerous appearances on the show and on SG-1 prior to the cancellation of either show, but I knew Atlantis was being canceled the moment they announced that Colonel Carter (Amanda Tapping’s character) was being replaced as expedition commander by Woolsey. I don’t know what it is about Picardo, but I couldn’t stand him in Star Trek: Voyager (see below), only tolerated him for the comedy relief he provided in Star Trek: First Contact, and I actively avoid him whenever possible. (End Rant) Only the addition to the cast of Jewel Staite from Firefly and Serenity kept me watching Atlantis to the end.
So, you see, I have a lot of love for the Stargate empire, and I was eager to find out what Stargate Universe was all about when the new series was announced. When the details finally started coming out, I started scrambling for a way to get in contact with the writers and producers to get them to change their minds about the direction they were headed in. The reason was simple. Although there were lots of rabid Star Trek fans that loved Voyager, I basically hated the show because it was going so far against all the other series that it wasn’t Star Trek any more. My Star Trek loving friends didn’t even watch the show. I watched out of morbid fascination and in the unlikely hope that they’d make the show better. The concept of Voyager was flawed from the start: Rick Berman and other series creators wanted to “get back” to the simplicity of the original series, which they conceptualized as one ship against the galaxy.
The problem was that at no point was the Enterprise under the command of Kirk ever completely cut off from Starfleet and isolated in unfriendly space. They often went to the rescue of other Starfleet vessels, came in contact with them, and visited starbases. The Enterprise wasn’t forced through season after season of running combat while trying to get home. Kirk dealt with aliens far beyond his ability to conceive not only by fighting them, but reasoning with them. This was never possible or allowed in Voyager or in two seasons of Enterprise. Kirk found solutions, Janeway just dealt with the problems, which given their situation might have been acceptable, but it wasn’t the Star Trek way. The original Star Trek series was about exploration, but after the passing of Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek in Berman’s hands seemed to be about nothing but combat and special effects. Frankly, I’m glad Roddenberry didn’t live to see his dream, his creation get perverted in Berman’s hands. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Deep Space Nine which was Berman’s child as well, and I had high hopes for Enterprise though I knew it was going to be put down as well when they made Scott Bakula’s Captain Archer such a weak captain, but Voyager was a complete disaster in my book.
What bothered me the most about Voyager (and Enterprise)? This is difficult for me to express properly, but I hated that the racial mix among the cast felt forced. It was like someone said “We have to have 10% black actors, at least 5% Asian, and let’s see what other minorities we can throw in the mix.” I’m black, and I always love to see black actors in movies and television, but it felt forced on Voyager and Enterprise. I wouldnt’ have cared if there wasn’t a single regular cast member that was black if they cast the best actors for the roles instead. While I’m not griping about the acting on Voyager or Enterprise, I am stating that the racial balance felt forced.
Now that you know my reasoning, here’s why Stargate Universe failed: the producers didn’t learn a damned thing from the failures of Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise. They took an existing property that had a very successful formula, scratched out a lot of what made it successful, and threw it together without considering what their audience wanted, expected, or liked. They keys to the success of both SG-1 and Atlantis is that there was regular contact between the teams, they organized and mobilized like military forces do and should, they made extensive efforts at diplomacy in the tradition of Roddenberry’s Star Trek, and had good story lines that occasionally necessitated combat, but blowing something up wasn’t usually the first thing the teams resorted to. At no point were the main characters ever permanently cut off from the supporting characters at Stargate Command. And, most importantly, all the central characters were likable.
Stargate Universe followed in Star Trek Voyager‘s footsteps by immediately cutting off all practical contact with their central base of operations. I think during the filming of the pilot, one of the writers caught whiff of Voyager‘s rotting corpse and contrived the Ancient communication stones to try to counteract this failure, but I don’t think it was terribly successful. Top it off, the commanding officer Colonel Young, played by Louis Ferreira, was an asshole that didn’t have any clear goals or motivations other than he didn’t like to lose what he had. I’m not criticizing the acting, Ferreira played the role quite well, but the character wasn’t remotely likable. Truthfully, the only characters I liked, besides the recurring characters from the other series, on the show were Sargent Greer (Jamil Walker Smith), Eli Wallace (David Blue), Dr. Rush (Robert Carlyle), Camile Wray (Ming-Na), and Colonel Telford (Lou Diamond Phillips). I couldn’t care if the rest lived or died. And that was a problem.
One of the keys to success with all of these sci-fi shows I’ve mentioned in this post is that the successful shows featured characters with clear motivations, goals, and had supporting characters that were hellbent on helping them achieve them. They were likable characters played to perfection by their actors. I’m not criticizing a single actor in this post for their acting ability, but I assure you that the the show’s success or failure hinged on the charisma of their characters in addition to the groundwork on which the show was based. Stargate Universe was dead before it ever aired. It had no choice but to fall back on what failed in Voyager and Enterprise: pointless combat and special effects. When that wasn’t enough, it tried to rely on the personalities of the characters and plot elements that were on hand. When those weren’t enough, they tried to correct the problem by adding new characters and twists courtesy of the Lucian Alliance’s “Hail Mary” (opening a stargate connection to Destiny). Everything that I’ve seen in season 2 was damage control, but it was already too late.
The sad thing is, with the last episode I saw (the last one of 2010), they seemed to be getting the right idea: that we viewers want more from our science fiction than just meaningless fighting. Some of the actual plot was good, and there was even some good old fashion Star Trekian exploration. There are a few episodes left that may or may not air, or maybe I missed them already… I’m curious to see them because I wonder if I’d have liked the direction that it was beginning to go in. But it doesn’t matter, because even if I would have, it’s never going to reach the destination for which it might have been headed.
That wraps up this exhaustive rant, but I just have one more thing to say: “F” you Siffie.
Attack of the Clones
Despite what the title my imply, I’m not referring to the Star Wars film by George Lucas. In fact, I’m not referring to the movie industry at all, but to some of the television networks many Americans turn to for daily entertainment. What I am referring to is the reimplementation of popular British television series here in the United States for no good reason. It started off innocently enough: versions of various reality shows produced with people from the United States instead of the United Kingdom. You know their names: American Idol, America’s Got Talent, and so on. As much as I detest them, especially because they’re “reality shows,” at least it made sense to do localized versions of them.
Now, a few years later, it’s taking a turn for the worst. Tired of not knowing anything about it, I started watching Doctor Who last year via both Netflix and BBC America. I quickly fell in love with the series, David Tennant, Freema Agyeman, Billie Piper, and more recently Karen Gillan. (Matt Smith is still growing on me.) Watching BBCA for so many hours on a regular basis got me to be familiar, in concept at least, with some of their other shows, especially Top Gear, Being Human, and Skins. Aside from Top Gear, I decided that these other shows simply weren’t for me, and chose not to watch them. Being from Detroit, Top Gear tickles my automotive funny bone, and the three hosts — Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May — are hilarious. So, I started tuning in to Top Gear whenever I got the chance.
Then I saw a commercial on the History Channel that I simply couldn’t believe: Top Gear was coming to the U.S.. Well, it was sort of coming to the U.S.; Clarkson, Hammond, and May weren’t coming with it. Instead, it was going to be filled with homegrown motorheads, that don’t seem to have any working chemistry with one another at all. While TG is indeed a television show about fast cars and silly challenges, I’d like to point out that it is driven strongly by the personalities, chemistry, and relationships of its hosts; so much so that if it lost any two of them, the show would fall flat on its face. Having watched the American version of Top Gear, I have to conclude that I was entirely correct.
I don’t blame the hosts on the American show, it’s not their fault. They were tasked to do the impossible: start filming from scratch with a known formula but with their individual and different personalities substituted for those in the U.K. version and make it work right from the start. The problem is their relationships or at least the roles they’re trying to fulfill may be similar to those of the original show, but they are not the same. The three hosts, Adam Ferrara, Tanner Foust, and Rutledge Wood try and fail to bring the same excitement and entertainment of the original to their version. What the producers have done, at best, is to create a mockery of the original Top Gear by trying to use the same formula down to some of the smallest details. It’s a shame that the producers and the History Channel think that the U.S. version is acceptable to anyone that has watched even a single episode of the U.K. original.
Last night was the premiere of Being Human on Siffie. (Yes, I know that they spell their channel name SyFy and pronounce it “sci-fi” but I refuse to call them by that title since they decided to abandon the audience, the hardcore and not so hardcore science fiction junkies that kept them in business all these years.) As I stated above, I had previously decided that the U.K. version of the show wasn’t for me, but at the urging of a close friend that just moved to England, I watched it last night to report to him. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Being Human, the show’s premise is that a werewolf, vampire, and a ghost end up living together in a townhouse and try to take care of one another as they each try to overcome their monstrous nature. In truth, the show wasn’t too bad; in fact it was almost enjoyable. But it did somethings that I simply didn’t like. Given the nature of the show, the first rule is that YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT TWILIGHT! The second rule is quite simply, YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT TWILIGHT! Go do your own thing, don’t even acknowledge the existence of another franchise in another medium that uses some similar formula, especially not one that is as both loved and hated as the Twilight saga. What did Being Human USA do in the very first hour? Make Twilight references. A good television series like the original Being Human can stand alone without depending on silly and stupid references to other pop culture curiosities; the premiere episode irritated me as a result of that reference because I now fully expect other silly crap like that to appear throughout the rest of the season.
Putting that aside, my other irritation with the show is really and truly insignificant: they changed the names of the main characters. I’m assuming that Mitchell, Annie, and George, the names of the main characters in the U.K. version, were just a little too European for the producers’ tastes, so they instead changed them to Aidan, Sally, and Josh. With the exception of Aidan, and with no offense intended to anyone, they successfully dumbed down the names. I’m not trying to say that Sally and Josh are dumb names, but they’re simpler and I guess more common than Annie and George, but in truth, it really doesn’t make any sense to me why they changed the names at all. It may be a stretch, but I’d bet that just about every American has known a Mitchell, Annie, and/or George at some point in their lives, so why change the names? I’d have to say that the producers looked at statistics of popular names among their target audiences and picked the most popular ones. With the exception of Aidan that is.
I’ve never met anyone by that name, and while I do recall it being one of the more popular baby names in recent years, I suspect I know why the producers chose that name for the vampire character in the U.S. version. In the U.K. version, the vampire Mitchell is played by actor Aidan Turner, so what the U.S. producers have done is create a bridge between the two versions by naming the vampire character after the actor that originally portrayed him. Call it an Easter Egg. Call it homage. Call it whatever you like. The simple fact is that they wouldn’t have needed to do that if they had just kept the original character names. But, seeing as I one day would like to work in film or television as a screenwriter, I’ll just write this irritation off to contractual obligations that necessitated the change in character names.
All that said, I’ve heard tale that the U.S. version will being using the original scripts from the U.K. version, touched up here and there for the States. If that’s true, then this could be a pretty good series as long as they steer clear of pointless pop culture references that weren’t in the original. I still haven’t seen any of the original series, but I just added the first DVD of the series to my Netflix queue so I can compare the first episodes. Over all, though, it’s still not my cup of tea. Oh, and one more thing. “F” you Siffie.
This brings me around to the last clone I definitely want to mention today: Skins. This also debuted last night, on MTV, and is the only show that I think could possibly work in the U.S. as a rip off reimagining of the original. I’ve only watched a few episodes of the original series thus far, but intend to watch it from the beginning at some point in the future because of the gratuitous panty shots. I’m a pervert, deal with it. What I have seen, however, would fit naturally in MTV’s line up of television shows assuming that MTV decides to label it as a work of fiction, rather than the endless lineup of crappy reality shows they usually air. Since I didn’t watch the U.S. version last night, and I really don’t know a whole lot about the U.K. series, this is going to be brief: Skins might fit in perfectly among the network’s lineup, but wouldn’t it have been a hell of a lot cheaper to just license and syndicate the original series rather than recreate it from scratch? Face it, MTV, you got us used to foreign accents by doing The Real World all over the world, so don’t you think we could have dealt with the British version of Skins? Think about how much more you’re spending to shoot each episode versus the licensing fee to just use the already available episodes… Is this about future DVD sales? Come on…!
Now, I’ve heard rumor that there’s been some casting efforts for the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood, but I’m not sure if it’s to create a U.S. version of the show, or to just revive the original. I like Torchwood, but I’m not a regular watcher. But if I even hear through whispers of rumored conversations overheard in a crowded restaurant of Doctor Who being cloned for a U.S. version, there will be hell to pay… Doctor and Amy, I look forward to your visit to the States, but I want you to know that this is the one official warning that my domestic television producers will get regarding you: DON’T CLONE THE DOCTOR!
Sunday January 23, 2011 11:30 pm EST: Just a quick follow-up, I can summarize Being Human UK vs US like this: UK > US.
Slightly Different Direction
Ok, this site has been A) dormant and B) unpopular, even by my standards. So I’m going to abandon the original direction I was going with the site, and turn it into my own little version of a pop culture site. I’m going to continue to write reviews of things as I see fit, and put my own little spin on them, but lets just get it straight: these are my opinions. My advice from here on out is listen to what I have to say but think for yourselves.
Also, from now on, don’t expect to see any spoiler warnings from me. If I’m talking about something, you should consider yourselves already warned that there will be spoilers.
An Evil Geni.us is dead. Long live An Evil Geni.us!
Raymond
Flunky 673
a.k.a. The Evil One
Review: Star Trek Online
I’m a Star Trek fan, but let’s get something straight: I am neither a Trekkie nor a Trekker. I am just a fan that has enjoyed most of the Trek legacy and hopes that a new series will one day wander back on to TV sans Rick Berman.
So when I found out about STO, I was curious. The boss, Mr. Cardassian Head himself, egged me on and convinced me to pre-order and get the lifetime subscription. He swore that if I wasn’t entirely satisfied, he’d pay me back for it AND let me leave his lab for a month. Can’t lose right?
First of all, I knew he was lying from the start. He’s evil and a genius, but not unpredictable. Still I get to be a lifetime subscriber to a new game that I’ll get to watch evolve. Still a win because I still wish I had that option with World of Warcraft.
So I buy it and start playing. Early on, I noticed that the missions are even more repetitive than those in WoW, but there are the missions that break the monotony. But for the most part you fly to a solar system, destroy any enemies and/or scan anomalies and sometimes beam down to a planet to do the same. Boring after the 30th time you do this.
The thin motivation for doing this countless times is that you get bridge officer points to spend on skills that improve your ship piloting and combat abilities, and when you get enough you get promoted and a new ship.
Though I’ve now had this game since mid-January, I hadn’t played much since February when I made Commander 4 and stopped playing out of boredom. On Friday I decided to try to get some more of my money’s worth out of the game, and pushed my character up to Captain 5 today.
You want to know something? This game is still boring.
The one saving grace of this game is that if you get a sufficiently powerful ship, like a Defiant class escort, there are times when it actually feels like and episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9.
Beyond that, it mostly feels like any Bermanized Star Trek series: predictable, combat oriented, pointless, and more often than not, boring.
How predictable? I don’t even bother to read missions any more other than to see where I’m supposed to go. The biggest surprise I’ve had in the game recently was a new game mechanic that required me to to shoot control panels to deactivate a force field that protects another control panel that disables another force field. Brilliant. Who do I kill now?
There’s the option to explore as well, but that exploration yields more of the same with little more to offer. You never discover anything amazing, or never before seen… Just something ripped out of the existing series’ mythology.
Maybe I’d enjoy this game if I played it with a friend or two but as of now, I’d rather not play at all because if the boredom doesn’t irritate me, the bugs and limitations do.
While you do move about in a 3Dish environment while flying your ship, you are limited to moving forwards or backwards like an airplane: you can’t just go straight up or down, you have to angle your ship generally in that direction while moving forward or backwards.
You don’t currently have the ability to see any interior of your ship except for the bridge. When on a planet, you have to move around plants you should be able to just push through. And worst of all: today I discovered a bug in the bridge officer point rewards. It indicated I received 501 points, but gave me less than 470, which makes me wonder how many points I’ve been cheated out of.
My verdict? Don’t waste your time with STO unless you have money to throw away and are the most diehard of Trek fans. If that’s the case, I can give you a PayPal address to send money to every month.
The boss hasn’t stopped laughing at me. I wonder if I can find a way into his bedroom tonight to smother him in his sleep…
Oh a rating? I’m not even going to give it one, because that might give someone the mistaken impression that I have some dignity left after becoming a lifetime STO subscriber.
Kwame Kilpatrick: Not An Evil Genius
As you may or may not begin to guess, I have been assigned to the South Eastern Michigan region for the boss’ domination inquisition, so I tend to notice a lot of what’s going on in and around Detroit. It’s not necessarily fair, but I’m suffering as much as you are…
Anyways, Detroiters are well aware of the Kwame Kilpatrick Saga, and while I sometimes think that he’s being treated unfairly, the bottom line is this: Kwame Kilpatrick is no evil genius. For that matter, Kwame Kilpatrick is no genius. Evil remains to be seen, but the bottom line is that the path to hell is paved with good intentions and bad ideas, and I’m sure Mr. Kilpatrick has had plenty of both of those.
Going back several years, Kilpatrick plead guilty to various perjury charges stemming from his attempts to cover-up an affair he had been having with his aide. Cheating is one thing, but misusing city assets to cover it up is just plain stupid: there’s going to be accountability at some point. I’m going to decline the opportunity to rant on that at this time, but the bottom line is he eventually admitted his guilt, accepted the terms of a plea bargain which included a minimal jail term of 120 days, and $1 million in reparations. He did his time, and he even got permission to move out of state to work for a Detroit based company’s location in Texas. Fine, whatever.
Then he began to shoot himself in the foot.
The first key to being an evil genius is to be low key: avoid drawing attention to yourself.
Early in his post jail days, Kwame stopped paying the $6,000 per month reparations, claiming that he could only pay $6 per month after his bills, legal fees, and other expenses. He filed paperwork requesting that the amount be lowered so that he could make ends meet. This is reasonable.
Let me amend that: This is reasonable if:
- You aren’t making $200,000 per year in your new job.
- You didn’t move into a large exclusive home in a gated community.
- You and your spouse aren’t driving new expensive sport utility vehicles.
- You aren’t paying for your spouse’s expensive cosmetic surgery procedures.
- You didn’t accept loans and gifts from businessmen you were associated with in excess of $200,000.
By these things, it is completely unreasonable to state that you can only afford to pay $6 per month for your restitution. The only thing that Kwame did is draw attention to himself by complaining and filing the paperwork stating that he couldn’t afford to make those payments properly. But it didn’t end there…!
Having put himself in the spotlight, Kwame then tried to hide his financial status by not cooperating with the courts while they were trying to properly determine his financial status. No court in the world would make a ruling without evidence or information to weigh with regards to a legal motion. Kwame stated he could only pay $6, the court needed to confirm that. He had to have known from the moment he filed the motion that the court was going to request the information, so why did he refuse to cooperate?
The second key to being an evil genius is that if attention does get focused on you, make the attention go away as quickly as possible.
If Kwame had fully cooperated at the start of his quest to get his restitution lowered, the motion might have been denied, but it wouldn’t have snowballed. The denial might have stirred the waters a bit, but ultimately the status quo might not have changed at all. No one would have cared, the media wouldn’t have made a big deal, the spotlight would have moved on. Instead, Kwame kept fighting the fact finding investigations and requests for financial information, and attempted to conceal his family’s finances. In court he feigned ignorance of details he should reasonably know. The only thing these actions did is draw more attention to himself, and his refusal to cooperate with terms that he previously agreed to.
Bad move. No sign of intelligence there. At all. With leadership like that, it’s no wonder Detroit fell to the lows it’s now trying to climb out of. Great work, Kwame!
The only time that a lie might have actually have helped him, Kwame told the truth! In today’s sentencing hearing, Kwame made an impassioned plea to the judge to let him continue with his probation, saying that he wasn’t thinking about his commitments when he got out of jail, only how he could buy his family’s love and respect back. In my estimation, he should have told the judge that he was a compulsive liar, and that he needs to get treatment. This would have forced the judge to order a psych evaluation prior to sentencing, which no doubt would have determined that Kwame is not of sound mind, and needs regular psychiatric care he couldn’t reasonably get in prison. Result: Kwame would have court ordered treatment while on parole in the care and presence of his friends and family.
My verdict: Kwame Kilpatrick is not an evil genius.
By the way, to all those that claim that there’s a racist conspiracy working to “break Kwame down”: wake up. Kwame did this to himself. If he had just kept his mouth shut, paid his $6,000 per month like the court ordered, he could have continued living the high life without anyone in the courts ever raising an eyebrow. He brought this upon himself, foolishly. No racism was involved. You don’t have to have a conspiracy against you to be stupid.
Evil as a Career
Being the minion, or flunky as I prefer to be called, of an evil megalomaniac isn’t exactly a career choice when you’re taking those aptitude tests in high school. There’s no one route to being evil, and likewise, there’s no one route to being a flunky of a man that is attempting to rule the world. As such, there was no application that I completed to be “Flunky 673″… It’s something I just sort of fell into.
I wonder what my high school guidance counselor would say about me now…
There are a few things that everyone should know about evil and its true nature. I’ll attempt to summarize as best as possible, and I’ll also try not to let my mind wander too much.
First of all, evil is insidious. Evil finds ways to make itself at home in even the most innocent of actions, thoughts, games, and toys like “It’s A Small World” on crack. Never underestimate the power of evil to make its presence known.
Second, evil is persistent. Like darkness, it is every where, hiding in plain sight like shadows under a noon sun. The moment the light dims, it slips right back in.
Third, evil is necessary! How can there be good without evil? How can there be light without darkness? What point is having a hero if there’s no villain? Yin and Yang, people, Yin and Yang!
Fourth, evil will lower your property value. Just saying.
Fifth, being evil is always a good ice breaker and conversation starter. Ladies love bad boys, and guys always stare at the bad girls.
Sixth, evil’s health benefits suck. When you complain to your evil boss about not having dental, he’ll just laugh in your face saying “What did you expect? Perhaps a 401k as well?” Thank you Mr. Obama for health care reform, maybe I’ll actually be able to get my blood pressure under control some day…
Lastly, the evil retirement plan is even worse than one might expect. There’s no retirement home for evil flunkies, no sunny pastures for minions of the past. We’re used up and discarded. Perhaps if we’re lucky, we’ll get a double tap to the back of the head to bring a swift end to it all.
I think that about covers the basics of being in the evil line of work, but be sure to post any questions you may have…
Power Outages in Detroit, Michigan
Hi folks, this is just a little note to those people that happen to reside in Detroit, Michigan, and its surrounding metropolitan area. Today’s power outages were caused by the rain and the weather. They were not caused by a test of anything the Evil One is working on. Honest. Go about your normal routines. Move along people, nothing to see here.
Oh, and uh, the rain is completely unrelated to the precipitation heavy weather systems the midwest and east coast have been experiencing since late last year. These are completely unrelated to any weather experiments that we may or may not have been involved in.
If you’re looking to point fingers, you might want to point them out west towards Bill Gates…
Review: Super Street Fighter IV
I’m not entirely sure why he wants me to review a video game, but as he says, I’m not the evil genius, he is. So, I’m going to be telling you a bit about my personal experience with Capcom’s Super Street Fighter IV on the PlayStation 3 console. Once upon a time, I was reasonably good playing Street Fighter II and its derivative titles, but until last year I hadn’t played any of the titles in more than ten years. Suddenly, there was Street Fighter IV, and a fellow associate convinced me to get it. The Evil One apparently hadn’t figured out how to incorporate games into his grand scheme at that time, so this was purely a fun oriented mission.
I enjoyed playing SFIV, though being an old school player, I never could get the hang of the ultra combos or the EX special moves. Nonetheless, my associate and I had a lot of fun beating the hell out of one another. Among our favorite competitions where Dan vs Dan (damn blonde Dan to hell!), Ken vs Abel, and Chun-li vs Sakura. A quick explanation about Dan vs Dan: we felt that Dan was such a pathetic character that if we managed to master him and be able to defeat anyone with him, then we’d truly be masters of the game. Needless to say, we feel that we’ve achieved this goal.
All that said, there were some things in SFIV that got dropped from SSFIV that I miss. They’re insignificant, mind you, but I miss them anyway. In the new Endless Battle mode, which grew out of the ability to create custom matches, you no longer see the character your opponent has selected until after both of you have chosen. Again, not significant, but it was that touch that lead to the Dan-Dan matches more than anything else. I also miss the win-loss statistics that were given after each match so you knew readily when you were on the losing side for the night. Most of all, I miss some of the alternate outfits and colors that I either unlocked or bought in SFIV, now to be replaced by others in SSFIV. Maybe they’re still there, waiting to be unlocked again, but I think some went away. (Blonde Dan, if you’re gone, may you rot in hell!)
The new features are quite nice, however. I do like the fact that all characters are unlocked right from the start; I never did unlock Seth, Akuma, or Gouken on SFIV despite beating the game with all the other characters. I also love the replay feature; especially after performing two ultra combo finishes for the first time ever against a stranger last night. (I’m sure he’s wanting my head as much as the boss probably does…) Most of all, I love the fact that all the characters now have two ultra combos that you can choose from when you select your character.
Ultimately, the things I miss from SFIV aren’t enough to get me to even put that disc in my PS3, but I still miss them. Maybe they’ll return in an update… I hear the Evil One has contacts at Capcom… But I’m not going to hold my breath. If I had to rate the game, I’d give it 9.0 out of 10.0 somethingerothers as a game in general, and a perfect 10 in the fighting game category.
An Evil Web Site is Coming Your Way!
Please pardon the dust, I’m in the process of assembling my web site and re-educating my staff. In the mean time, bookmark this site and/or subscribe to the RSS feed or something. Or else. I don’t know where you live, but I will…
Evil One
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