I watched Ghostbusters II this evening, and found myself bothered by a couple of typical movie conventions that came up in the course of the film.
First, the plot centers around a cosmic plot that involves the coming of the new year.
Let's get this straight right now: New Year's Day represents exactly one thing in a cosmic sense - that the earth has yet again reached an arbitrarily chosen point in the its orbit around the sun. And here's the funny thing about arbitrarily chosen things: Their very nature as arbitrarily chosen precludes the possibility of them having some sort of deeper significance, no matter how hungover you are.
What's even more galling about it is the concept that anything from the ethereal plain or the religious afterlife would give a flying rat's ass about the new year. Presumably, these things which harness and use powers we can't begin to comprehend aren't bound by humanity's arbitrarily designated descriptions of time. Hell, I'm not bound by the dates in my appointment book, and I'm not even some sort of psychic, much less a demigod, angel, or other transcendental creature.
The second of convention that really gets me is that everything relies on local time in the movie. For instance, the antagonist in the movie is able to reincarnate himself at the beginning of the year. But apparently the entire ethereal plain is bound to Eastern Standard Time, because it's not like it was 12:01 on January 1st in Tokyo 13 hours before it was in New York City.
So, what the hell? The antagonist is a 17th Century Moldovan tyrant whose spirit has been stored in a painting and is planning to reincarnate himself via a psychomagnotheric plasm. I mean, if he's from Moldova, why is he stuck on Eastern Standard Time? Why not Moldovan Standard Time? Why not use a little bit of that resurrection power from the slime to do it at any damn time that pleases you? Is resurrection via slime like an international flight? If you miss it are you that screwed? (I guess missing the international flight is still worse. At least if you miss the resurrection you're just dead, but missing a flight back home means that you'll have to deal with airline personnel.)
Oh, and on the subject of time, was I the only one who got pissed off in American Treasure when they did the whole shadow casting on a spot at a certain time thing? It would only work for like a week out of the year, courtesy of the earth's 23 degree tilt on its axis. Lazy bastard writers fit in the daylight savings workaround, but they never managed to explain that one.
Anyway, I figured I'd share this with you in yet another example of my Knowledge Ruins Everything Series of Blog Posts.
Also, I guess that I should give fair warning that I will be offering free throat punches to anyone who decides to ask why it is I'm completely comfortable with slime that can make the Statue of Liberty walk or a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence, but clearly really pissed off about such trifling matters as time zones. That's for me to know and you to never ask.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Life Lessons
From the Denver Post:
As if a 100 point loss wasn't bad enough, now these girls are being taught life lessons that can only be a disservice to them:
1. If you lose badly enough, people will feel bad for you and reward your poor performance.
Just ask the French. They got bailed out of two world wars this way.
There is no excuse to teach a young person this lesson. It transfers all too easily from basketball to real life. "Maybe just being an alcoholic won't be enough. But if I manage to become an alcholic, prostitute, single mother, drug addict, and cripple all in one week... then, someone will coddle me! I'm going to need a feather boa, fishnet stockings, some hypodermic needles, a bottle of vodka, a baseball bat, and someone who is willing to use all of them on me."
Not only are they beign showered with pity, these girls are getting their first win in four years! Why? Because they managed to elevate losing to a new low. Consider this analogy involving real-life consequences, and tell me which one doesn't fit:
A. You fail at work: you get fired.
B. You fail at love: you get dumped.
C. You fail to follow traffic laws: you get a ticket.
D. You fail to drink responsibly: you puke.
E. You fail to play offense, defense, or anything resembling basketball: you win by forfeit and get to go to a Mavs game in the owner's suite.
If you said "E," congratulations! You live on Planet Earth with the rest of us.
2. None of this was their fault.
They lost. 100-0. One hundred. To zero. In other words, during the course of the game, they never even managed to get off a single good shot. They never managed to draw a foul and then sink a single free throw. They never once drove to the hoop to make a lay-up. They never so much as accomplished a single thing that a basketball player should. Admittedly, it was probably excessive for the winners to be draining threes in the 4th quarter. But to attribute the "shame and embarassment" of this debacle only to the winning team is an insult to athletics, the concept of competition, and anyone who has ever been better at something than someone else.
Imagine how simple minimizing this pathetic performance could have been. What if the girls from Dallas Academy (henceforth refered to as the "losers") had done nothing more than thrown a few hard fouls when Covenant (henceforth refered to as the "winners") kept shooting threes? I'll bet you after a couple of those winners would have thought long and hard before shooting from outside the arc again.
3. People paying attention to you as a result of your failures is good.
The Academy is apparently "excited" about this attention. Insanity, I say!
I will grant that in Hollywood, they say that there's no such thing as bad press. That's because their job is to be famous. Thus, being by being in the news, Hollywood celebrities are doing their jobs, regardless of the personality flaw, emotional outburst, or criminal act that resulted in the coverage.
A school, in the meantime, shouldn't be in the news for fostering such ineptitude that its players are incapable of winning even once in four years, then capping such an extraordinary under-achievement with a 100-0 loss. You know what this tells me about Dallas Academy? They don't care about winning. As I've mentioned, this isn't the kind of thing I want children taught. In fact, this type of lesson is the very reason a lot of kids are removed from public schools in the first place.
So, let's do these girls a favor. Instead of giving them hugs and kisses and a fake victory and telling them that everyone thinks they're special, let's show them some real love and tell them the four lessons they should have learned:
1. You lost by a very wide margin. You should have performed better.
2. You do not have to like that this is the case. In fact, you should not like that this is the case.
3. The solution to the problem of feeling bad about losing is to improve to the point that you win. Winners don't have to feel bad because they didn't lose.
4. Unless, of course, they rout an inferior team, at which point society will demand they apologize for it. So, if you're gonna stomp 'em, stop at about a 75 point margin. 60 if you really want to be safe.
Wonder if Wilt Chamberlain ever felt bad about putting up 100 pointsOuch.
against the Knicks in 1962?
A Texas high school girls basketball team on the winning end of a 100-0 game has a case of blowout remorse. Officials from The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Dallas, are trying to do the right thing by seeking a forfeit and apologizing for the winning margin.
Thursday on the school's website, the head of the school, Kyle Queal, said, "It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened." He went on to say that Covenant has made "a formal request to forfeit the game recognizing that a victory without honor is a great loss."
Last week, Covenant defeated Dallas Academy 100-0. Dallas Academy has eight girls on its team. It is winless over the last four seasons.
A parent who attended the game told The Associated Press that Covenant continued to make 3-pointers — even in the fourth quarter.
Queal said the game "does not reflect a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition. We humbly apologize for our actions and seek the forgiveness of Dallas Academy, TAPPS and our community."
The Dallas Academy has accepted the apology and said it is excited about some of the attention it is receiving from the loss, including an invitation from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to see an NBA game from his suite.
As if a 100 point loss wasn't bad enough, now these girls are being taught life lessons that can only be a disservice to them:
1. If you lose badly enough, people will feel bad for you and reward your poor performance.
Just ask the French. They got bailed out of two world wars this way.
There is no excuse to teach a young person this lesson. It transfers all too easily from basketball to real life. "Maybe just being an alcoholic won't be enough. But if I manage to become an alcholic, prostitute, single mother, drug addict, and cripple all in one week... then, someone will coddle me! I'm going to need a feather boa, fishnet stockings, some hypodermic needles, a bottle of vodka, a baseball bat, and someone who is willing to use all of them on me."
Not only are they beign showered with pity, these girls are getting their first win in four years! Why? Because they managed to elevate losing to a new low. Consider this analogy involving real-life consequences, and tell me which one doesn't fit:
A. You fail at work: you get fired.
B. You fail at love: you get dumped.
C. You fail to follow traffic laws: you get a ticket.
D. You fail to drink responsibly: you puke.
E. You fail to play offense, defense, or anything resembling basketball: you win by forfeit and get to go to a Mavs game in the owner's suite.
If you said "E," congratulations! You live on Planet Earth with the rest of us.
2. None of this was their fault.
They lost. 100-0. One hundred. To zero. In other words, during the course of the game, they never even managed to get off a single good shot. They never managed to draw a foul and then sink a single free throw. They never once drove to the hoop to make a lay-up. They never so much as accomplished a single thing that a basketball player should. Admittedly, it was probably excessive for the winners to be draining threes in the 4th quarter. But to attribute the "shame and embarassment" of this debacle only to the winning team is an insult to athletics, the concept of competition, and anyone who has ever been better at something than someone else.
Imagine how simple minimizing this pathetic performance could have been. What if the girls from Dallas Academy (henceforth refered to as the "losers") had done nothing more than thrown a few hard fouls when Covenant (henceforth refered to as the "winners") kept shooting threes? I'll bet you after a couple of those winners would have thought long and hard before shooting from outside the arc again.
3. People paying attention to you as a result of your failures is good.
The Academy is apparently "excited" about this attention. Insanity, I say!
I will grant that in Hollywood, they say that there's no such thing as bad press. That's because their job is to be famous. Thus, being by being in the news, Hollywood celebrities are doing their jobs, regardless of the personality flaw, emotional outburst, or criminal act that resulted in the coverage.
A school, in the meantime, shouldn't be in the news for fostering such ineptitude that its players are incapable of winning even once in four years, then capping such an extraordinary under-achievement with a 100-0 loss. You know what this tells me about Dallas Academy? They don't care about winning. As I've mentioned, this isn't the kind of thing I want children taught. In fact, this type of lesson is the very reason a lot of kids are removed from public schools in the first place.
So, let's do these girls a favor. Instead of giving them hugs and kisses and a fake victory and telling them that everyone thinks they're special, let's show them some real love and tell them the four lessons they should have learned:
1. You lost by a very wide margin. You should have performed better.
2. You do not have to like that this is the case. In fact, you should not like that this is the case.
3. The solution to the problem of feeling bad about losing is to improve to the point that you win. Winners don't have to feel bad because they didn't lose.
4. Unless, of course, they rout an inferior team, at which point society will demand they apologize for it. So, if you're gonna stomp 'em, stop at about a 75 point margin. 60 if you really want to be safe.
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