After all that has happened, I'm sad to say it but I now am stopping my blog. Particularly, it has to do with the fact of hardly gathering much of an audience I was hoping for especially since most of my articles deals with politics over other issues.
Really, I wanted to make this blog enjoyable, easy to digest with good ideas and opinions, and hopefully worth sharing among others when I advertize it.
I really had hope since December, there would be a new audience being attracted to it but I guess some things just aren't meant to happen.
Luckily, I'll be keeping myself busy with my work at Uber, my writing for my stories, and spending time with family and loved one's.
For now, all I can say is thank you all very much for being a part of this blog.
Overall, I can't really really tell about happy it was when you listened even though, I had no idea to who listened.
Objectively, this was the best thing for me since also I was busy with my new work.
Lastly, I just wanted to say this won't be an ending for me, it's a new beginning.
So remember, I won't say goodbye, I say au revoir.
Saturday, April 1, 2017
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Driving for Uber: Thoughts on my new Job and other small Opinions
Well, for those who did know yet, I am an Uber driver and so far I must say, I have an overall positive opinion of being an independently licensed taxi for everyone. It's a unique way of doing work.
To be honest, I was looking for work where I was living but that search always turned out cold no matter what happened. It was just that they sent emails that they wouldn't hire me or that I would wait to no avail. Then some of my family members suggested the idea of working for Uber. And Since I had nothing to lose, I might as well try it out. After car repairs and other things, I was driving for Uber.
Even though it's been a month I've been driving for Uber, I am overall pleased with now having work. But there are some issues I have with this situation. The more I see about Uber and Lyft style taxis, I have been hearing news of cities banning the personalized taxi cabs and even regulations on them trying to go to other states (apparently it's not ok for a California Uber to go drive into Nevada if a client wants to go to Vegas and vice versa). But do these regulators even know who they really hurt with enacting these regulations? They hurt people like me.
It seems they just don't want to understand what goes on in the regular onlooker for work. Since they know work is sparse right now, such an opportunity should be good. But instead of cheers, politicians and regulators don't use their brains and react in the most base of ways by saying no to whatever whims they want. And thus make it harder for people like me to make an income. The regulations not only affect us for lack of money gains but also for regular consumers who prefer such commodity services as such, they don't get the benefit of a more affordable taxi service. It makes everyone lose and that's truly an immoral thing to just bully someone out of a place just because they're doing it better than someone else who can too.
But the Uber and Lyft systems allow more accountability from people. People can review you for your virtues and failings with how you present your service and how accommodating you are to them. The standard is higher and made on a good platform but it's obvious to them, equal is fair when it is not.
Before I end this, I want to leave one final note. Just now I learned Uber is canceled in Denmark due to ridiculous demands and at least they had the sensibility to blame the laws for destroying them. And the only ones who pat themselves on their backs are the socialists and nationalists. Now Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were the socialist favorites. But who is the nationalist candidate that could also bring the power to tyrannically enforce anti-dog eat dog laws if possible? Chew on that for a little.
To be honest, I was looking for work where I was living but that search always turned out cold no matter what happened. It was just that they sent emails that they wouldn't hire me or that I would wait to no avail. Then some of my family members suggested the idea of working for Uber. And Since I had nothing to lose, I might as well try it out. After car repairs and other things, I was driving for Uber.
Even though it's been a month I've been driving for Uber, I am overall pleased with now having work. But there are some issues I have with this situation. The more I see about Uber and Lyft style taxis, I have been hearing news of cities banning the personalized taxi cabs and even regulations on them trying to go to other states (apparently it's not ok for a California Uber to go drive into Nevada if a client wants to go to Vegas and vice versa). But do these regulators even know who they really hurt with enacting these regulations? They hurt people like me.
It seems they just don't want to understand what goes on in the regular onlooker for work. Since they know work is sparse right now, such an opportunity should be good. But instead of cheers, politicians and regulators don't use their brains and react in the most base of ways by saying no to whatever whims they want. And thus make it harder for people like me to make an income. The regulations not only affect us for lack of money gains but also for regular consumers who prefer such commodity services as such, they don't get the benefit of a more affordable taxi service. It makes everyone lose and that's truly an immoral thing to just bully someone out of a place just because they're doing it better than someone else who can too.
But the Uber and Lyft systems allow more accountability from people. People can review you for your virtues and failings with how you present your service and how accommodating you are to them. The standard is higher and made on a good platform but it's obvious to them, equal is fair when it is not.
Before I end this, I want to leave one final note. Just now I learned Uber is canceled in Denmark due to ridiculous demands and at least they had the sensibility to blame the laws for destroying them. And the only ones who pat themselves on their backs are the socialists and nationalists. Now Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were the socialist favorites. But who is the nationalist candidate that could also bring the power to tyrannically enforce anti-dog eat dog laws if possible? Chew on that for a little.
Sunday, March 19, 2017
The Arts: A Free Market Solution
In the recent news, Many people are frustrated with Donald Trumps new budget plan and the most outrage seems to be going to the axing of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. As an artist myself (A Novelist and Playwright), I want to talk about why this might actually benefit everyone more than hurt everyone and my opinion with this.
Most of my friends and some of my family members really care and support the CPB, with channels like NPR and PBS giving all sorts of entertainment for everyone. Whether you listen to comedy podcasts like Wait, Wait, ... Don't Tell Me, or seeing the lovely items on Antiques Roadshow, no doubt both channels have good shows to offers whether introducing us to Downton Abbey and the Nobles who must change in the 20th century, enjoying the comedy of Garrison Keillor and his musical friends on A Prairie Home Companion show, or enjoying the murder mystery antics on Poirot, Marple, or Father Brown, both channels have something to offer. However, there is a main point still needed to be said about funding the arts. What is the government's role in it? My answer is that Government has no duty to fund the arts, we as the consumer however, do.
In the history of the world, the great artists of their times were funded by multiple patrons of the arts, whether be the Medici family supporting the Italian masters, Queen Elizabeth II personally funding William Shakespeare, or even today's Patreon, people have funded the high arts since its conception. Sites like Patreon, GoFundMe, and Kickstarter help give publicity to many artists, some of which I want to fund but sadly don't have the money. (However, I did help a fund for Tim Schafer's Psychonauts 2 being a fan of Tim's since playing and discovering Psychonauts.) And it allows more people to fund them personally for loving the art they make whether be video game making for Undertale, making fan art with artists like Sakimichan, or movies like horror/black comedy film Director's Cut. The internet age has allowed many of us to become the patrons of the arts we wanted to be. We decide to chose who we believe are worthy in our investments for their art in a way previously not possible. However, this is my main reason as to why I believe government shouldn't have a say in art. Because we don't get to chose who deserves our money.
For those of you who don't know my opinion in taxation, it should be all voluntary. (Of course I know that will hardly ever happen but give my idea a chance and realize taxation is theft pure and simple please) But when it came to our taxes now, we don't chose who deserves our money to be funded. People have various opinions of art and should decide themselves how to appropriate their money. Having someone steal their money to fund another isn't what should be happening but it is. Art Galleries, Artists, and others have used the CPB and other arts related programs to fund their projects without personal opinions from others. Of course people use the argument of the public good but really, the public good is nothing equivalent to the individual members who decide for themselves which projects they want to fund with their own money. For example, I personally abhor abstract and postmodern art of any kind whether be abstract paintings replicate Jackson Pollock's schizophrenic style, sculptures where balloon animals are enlarged with no real purpose, or architecture that changes their style way too much to be recognized for functional purpose over odded-aggrandizement. Personally, I feel postmodern art is not meant for anyone but the artists to understand as some sort of condescending reaction to patrons of fine art and just give the taxpayers the middle finger and contort art to some ugly, unappealing, and schizophrenic form insulting the rational mind. (That itself sounds like a postmodern artwork) For people like me, we have no say to funding these artists and are personally ignored over some oddities in a museum that should be dedicated to bad art. We as patrons have no say in what we want for our art and if we disagree to fund it, we can't. As well as this, they also abuse the system to give themselves private and public money, aggrandizing themselves without a serious look at whether their art is of true merit and theiving from people like us.
Defunding the arts allows more power to the U.S. citizenry to decide for themselves the essential philosophical question of What is Art? The government obviously has no taste in art and should have no say to decide what we can fund and what we can't. And there are so many places and people we can find to see if we can make a wise investment in their art.
Most of my friends and some of my family members really care and support the CPB, with channels like NPR and PBS giving all sorts of entertainment for everyone. Whether you listen to comedy podcasts like Wait, Wait, ... Don't Tell Me, or seeing the lovely items on Antiques Roadshow, no doubt both channels have good shows to offers whether introducing us to Downton Abbey and the Nobles who must change in the 20th century, enjoying the comedy of Garrison Keillor and his musical friends on A Prairie Home Companion show, or enjoying the murder mystery antics on Poirot, Marple, or Father Brown, both channels have something to offer. However, there is a main point still needed to be said about funding the arts. What is the government's role in it? My answer is that Government has no duty to fund the arts, we as the consumer however, do.
In the history of the world, the great artists of their times were funded by multiple patrons of the arts, whether be the Medici family supporting the Italian masters, Queen Elizabeth II personally funding William Shakespeare, or even today's Patreon, people have funded the high arts since its conception. Sites like Patreon, GoFundMe, and Kickstarter help give publicity to many artists, some of which I want to fund but sadly don't have the money. (However, I did help a fund for Tim Schafer's Psychonauts 2 being a fan of Tim's since playing and discovering Psychonauts.) And it allows more people to fund them personally for loving the art they make whether be video game making for Undertale, making fan art with artists like Sakimichan, or movies like horror/black comedy film Director's Cut. The internet age has allowed many of us to become the patrons of the arts we wanted to be. We decide to chose who we believe are worthy in our investments for their art in a way previously not possible. However, this is my main reason as to why I believe government shouldn't have a say in art. Because we don't get to chose who deserves our money.
For those of you who don't know my opinion in taxation, it should be all voluntary. (Of course I know that will hardly ever happen but give my idea a chance and realize taxation is theft pure and simple please) But when it came to our taxes now, we don't chose who deserves our money to be funded. People have various opinions of art and should decide themselves how to appropriate their money. Having someone steal their money to fund another isn't what should be happening but it is. Art Galleries, Artists, and others have used the CPB and other arts related programs to fund their projects without personal opinions from others. Of course people use the argument of the public good but really, the public good is nothing equivalent to the individual members who decide for themselves which projects they want to fund with their own money. For example, I personally abhor abstract and postmodern art of any kind whether be abstract paintings replicate Jackson Pollock's schizophrenic style, sculptures where balloon animals are enlarged with no real purpose, or architecture that changes their style way too much to be recognized for functional purpose over odded-aggrandizement. Personally, I feel postmodern art is not meant for anyone but the artists to understand as some sort of condescending reaction to patrons of fine art and just give the taxpayers the middle finger and contort art to some ugly, unappealing, and schizophrenic form insulting the rational mind. (That itself sounds like a postmodern artwork) For people like me, we have no say to funding these artists and are personally ignored over some oddities in a museum that should be dedicated to bad art. We as patrons have no say in what we want for our art and if we disagree to fund it, we can't. As well as this, they also abuse the system to give themselves private and public money, aggrandizing themselves without a serious look at whether their art is of true merit and theiving from people like us.
Defunding the arts allows more power to the U.S. citizenry to decide for themselves the essential philosophical question of What is Art? The government obviously has no taste in art and should have no say to decide what we can fund and what we can't. And there are so many places and people we can find to see if we can make a wise investment in their art.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Living an Aristotelian Life in a Postmodern World (Part 1)
In today's society, there's hardly much interest in being a rational person. The intellectuals can't seem to come up with anything but that knowledge and wisdom are lies and can't be verified. The religion tell us to escape this world of flesh and greed with the spiritual world that hasn't been verified either. Hardly anything in this world is sacred to them anymore and thus they have lost all will to try to change it or they change it but damn anyone who doesn't agree with them even though they have no objective standard to a purposeful life. What a tragedy it is.
For myself, however, I live in a different kind of ethic. It's the Objectivist Lifestyle of where a man is worth himself and more if he can put his mind to calculate and create the world he wants for himself. (As long as he doesn't use force to create it.) We must use reason, negotiation, and persuasion to ally and convince people of his ideas and wealth creation. But not everyone follows the Objectivist Ethic. Many people find the philosophy too extreme for them with it's absolute rejection of the spiritual and the need for an Objective moral basis in Selfishness being the primary issues of this philosophy. (The arguments being from the religious that in order for an Objective moral foundation, God must provide it. The argument from almost everyone in the world is that Selfishness is wrong and altruism is good. Altruism being good however doesn't correlate as the definition of altruism is to sacrifice the better for the least of your preferences. i.e. Sacrifice yourself for others. And no reason has been truly made as to why any individual life is worth more to another than it is to that person.) But if so, how can Objectivists persuade people to live rationally in an otherwise irrational world? That comes in the form of the Aristotlelian ethics and method.
Aristotle (384 BC/BCE- 322 BC/BCE) was the Greek philosopher who helped inspire Western Civilization among his teacher and contemporary Plato. But both had different viewpoints of the world. Plato was concerned with the metaphysical realm of forms where perfection resides but Aristotle claimed that perfection can be found and made on Earth. The Aristotlelian Method comes from the scientific method he formulated at the time, giving him the title of the grandfather of modern science with his scientific method and researching capabilities being the primary source of all scientific endeavors to the present. But the primary issue needed to be explained is his ethics.
Aristotle's son Nichomachus, helped edit his father's work, presently titled for his son's editing work, Nichomachean Ethics. (Though scholars debate whether he was able to or not saying he could've died in war but that's a history lesson I'll have to research in the future.) This book gave the idea of what he had provided with using reason to cultivate good virtues by means of reason. What should be strived for is flourishing of the human body and soul is the primary means of having a successful life. Though we look for our happiness, Aristotle said that our search for eudamonia is a lifelong process rather than the short bouts of pleasure we think are actual happiness. It's important for all of us to pursue this eudamonia by following the virtues laid out in his Nichomachean ethics.
To Be Continued in Part 2 (The Ethics of Eudamonia)
For myself, however, I live in a different kind of ethic. It's the Objectivist Lifestyle of where a man is worth himself and more if he can put his mind to calculate and create the world he wants for himself. (As long as he doesn't use force to create it.) We must use reason, negotiation, and persuasion to ally and convince people of his ideas and wealth creation. But not everyone follows the Objectivist Ethic. Many people find the philosophy too extreme for them with it's absolute rejection of the spiritual and the need for an Objective moral basis in Selfishness being the primary issues of this philosophy. (The arguments being from the religious that in order for an Objective moral foundation, God must provide it. The argument from almost everyone in the world is that Selfishness is wrong and altruism is good. Altruism being good however doesn't correlate as the definition of altruism is to sacrifice the better for the least of your preferences. i.e. Sacrifice yourself for others. And no reason has been truly made as to why any individual life is worth more to another than it is to that person.) But if so, how can Objectivists persuade people to live rationally in an otherwise irrational world? That comes in the form of the Aristotlelian ethics and method.
Aristotle (384 BC/BCE- 322 BC/BCE) was the Greek philosopher who helped inspire Western Civilization among his teacher and contemporary Plato. But both had different viewpoints of the world. Plato was concerned with the metaphysical realm of forms where perfection resides but Aristotle claimed that perfection can be found and made on Earth. The Aristotlelian Method comes from the scientific method he formulated at the time, giving him the title of the grandfather of modern science with his scientific method and researching capabilities being the primary source of all scientific endeavors to the present. But the primary issue needed to be explained is his ethics.
Aristotle's son Nichomachus, helped edit his father's work, presently titled for his son's editing work, Nichomachean Ethics. (Though scholars debate whether he was able to or not saying he could've died in war but that's a history lesson I'll have to research in the future.) This book gave the idea of what he had provided with using reason to cultivate good virtues by means of reason. What should be strived for is flourishing of the human body and soul is the primary means of having a successful life. Though we look for our happiness, Aristotle said that our search for eudamonia is a lifelong process rather than the short bouts of pleasure we think are actual happiness. It's important for all of us to pursue this eudamonia by following the virtues laid out in his Nichomachean ethics.
To Be Continued in Part 2 (The Ethics of Eudamonia)
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Conservatism is the New Progressivism
Within already almost the end of another beginning month this year, President Trump's administration has been called so many things I can't even list. He's been cheered for (blindly and critically) by Conservatives and criticized (almost always) by the so called Liberals. Truly the weirdest of culture wars about a celebrity who became a President in the similar fashion to Ronald Reagan. But sadly that's about where that similarity ends with him and what some Conservatives hope for. With the election of Trump and an array of articles too hard to find the truth from yellow journalism, I've noticed a sad phenomenon that Conservatism is going through and will most likely and probably has already been it's killing point. It's moral compass.
Morally the Conservatives paint themselves as a beacon of laissez-faire capitalism, individual rights, and personal freedom. But the more I look into this, it's starting to sound more like they're actually into totalitarian tendencies; the similar lie told by many liberals when they called themselves beacons of freedom but instead have veiled themselves under banners of political correctness, appeasement, and lack of moral fiber or courage.Today, Conservatism is plagued with many wishy-washy premises in contact with the welfare state, the foreign war policy, and taxes and tariffs.
With taxes and tariffs, the Conservative mindset says that it should be lowered but not eliminated as funds from a government must exist and thus money must still be forcefully taken from their citizens rather than peacefully donated to them by volition. This attitude strikes concern to me as this is truly a major point in their attitude towards a bias towards money in what can be justified as only towards their religious purposes as Paul wrote "The Love of Money is the Root of all Evil." But this is no justification for theft. All taxes and tariffs are excuses for theft from the government to say, "You didn't earn this, so we're taking it!" It's an equivalent to the school bully who enforces his fists for other students lunch money.
With the welfare state, they fare no better. Conservatives constantly say they need to limit the welfare state to make American's self reliant on their own wealth and influence and that government is there to protect people's rights. But they themselves can't handle the consequences of a fully Capitalistic system and thus appease Democrats, Populists, and other collectivist types to allow for such inconsistencies to exist in the governing sphere with the lies and schemes of the welfare state. They don't even question why it is the government's purpose to do such a thing but just say they should lower it. The welfare state has created many, if not, all of the economic problems we face today with the elderly not saving enough money into the system, the high taxes needed to pay for them and others, as well as Obamacare. This one law almost every Conservative hates, yet now, they delay it. They had the chance when Obama was president and there where majorities in both houses or the Senate could've filibustered the legislation longer but have failed us one too many times. And if that wasn't worse, they want to fully replace Obamacare. Not repeal it, replace it. It's a true insult among all individual citizens tired of paying so much into Obamacare's lousy and inhospitable health market.
Lastly, the foreign policy of war has been the one that has irked many for a time to come. With the Bush Administration, Bush betrayed the ideas of what Islam can do to America by stating in a speech just given days after the 9/11 bombings that Islam is a religion of peace. Such a lie can't be forgiven and is already a crack in the rocky foundation of this policy. Another is a similar premise with how the war was constructed with our primary enemies by attacking a country (Iraq) who had, at the time, little contact with the members of Al-Queda and other terrorist organizations who were buddy-buddy with regimes like Iran and Saudi Arabia and letting many of our good men and women out in a country to fight sacrificially. The tactics of this policy even reflected Bush's appeasement with not wanting to destroy mosques and other financial and governmental places terrorist organizations were harboring new recruits or to the governments responsible for paying for their crimes against humanity. And with Obama, ... I think I don't have to explain how badly that went. But now with Trump in the president's chair, we see his rhetoric is both anti-Islam and anti-Muslim (I personally did not like the latter but the former I congratulate.) is strong but yet we have yet to see where that will go because having talk is one story but allowing the military to analyze and judge for themselves how to win the unwinnable war, is another.
If any Conservatives are reading this article, I ask of you this. If you wish to save your dying ideology, you need to start reevaluating yourself from the inside and start taking some crucial lessons from people like Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, Frederick Hayek, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Yaron Brook, Aristotle, and others upon how to fight against the anti-Western ideals that are crumbling our society. You say you admire the founding fathers but they would all scold and even rebel against you for allowing such madness to happen. The Founding Fathers created a society inspired by American Individualism and you desperately need that in your philosophy. That is the greatest start to promote in contrast to pragmatic policy making you've got yourselves into on your own merits. Remember that "history is a battleground of ideas" and usually the most consistent win. The socialists, Left, Muslims, and other anti-western thinkers are winning. It's time to shred these shadows and start coming into the light.
With taxes and tariffs, the Conservative mindset says that it should be lowered but not eliminated as funds from a government must exist and thus money must still be forcefully taken from their citizens rather than peacefully donated to them by volition. This attitude strikes concern to me as this is truly a major point in their attitude towards a bias towards money in what can be justified as only towards their religious purposes as Paul wrote "The Love of Money is the Root of all Evil." But this is no justification for theft. All taxes and tariffs are excuses for theft from the government to say, "You didn't earn this, so we're taking it!" It's an equivalent to the school bully who enforces his fists for other students lunch money.
With the welfare state, they fare no better. Conservatives constantly say they need to limit the welfare state to make American's self reliant on their own wealth and influence and that government is there to protect people's rights. But they themselves can't handle the consequences of a fully Capitalistic system and thus appease Democrats, Populists, and other collectivist types to allow for such inconsistencies to exist in the governing sphere with the lies and schemes of the welfare state. They don't even question why it is the government's purpose to do such a thing but just say they should lower it. The welfare state has created many, if not, all of the economic problems we face today with the elderly not saving enough money into the system, the high taxes needed to pay for them and others, as well as Obamacare. This one law almost every Conservative hates, yet now, they delay it. They had the chance when Obama was president and there where majorities in both houses or the Senate could've filibustered the legislation longer but have failed us one too many times. And if that wasn't worse, they want to fully replace Obamacare. Not repeal it, replace it. It's a true insult among all individual citizens tired of paying so much into Obamacare's lousy and inhospitable health market.
Lastly, the foreign policy of war has been the one that has irked many for a time to come. With the Bush Administration, Bush betrayed the ideas of what Islam can do to America by stating in a speech just given days after the 9/11 bombings that Islam is a religion of peace. Such a lie can't be forgiven and is already a crack in the rocky foundation of this policy. Another is a similar premise with how the war was constructed with our primary enemies by attacking a country (Iraq) who had, at the time, little contact with the members of Al-Queda and other terrorist organizations who were buddy-buddy with regimes like Iran and Saudi Arabia and letting many of our good men and women out in a country to fight sacrificially. The tactics of this policy even reflected Bush's appeasement with not wanting to destroy mosques and other financial and governmental places terrorist organizations were harboring new recruits or to the governments responsible for paying for their crimes against humanity. And with Obama, ... I think I don't have to explain how badly that went. But now with Trump in the president's chair, we see his rhetoric is both anti-Islam and anti-Muslim (I personally did not like the latter but the former I congratulate.) is strong but yet we have yet to see where that will go because having talk is one story but allowing the military to analyze and judge for themselves how to win the unwinnable war, is another.
If any Conservatives are reading this article, I ask of you this. If you wish to save your dying ideology, you need to start reevaluating yourself from the inside and start taking some crucial lessons from people like Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, Frederick Hayek, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Yaron Brook, Aristotle, and others upon how to fight against the anti-Western ideals that are crumbling our society. You say you admire the founding fathers but they would all scold and even rebel against you for allowing such madness to happen. The Founding Fathers created a society inspired by American Individualism and you desperately need that in your philosophy. That is the greatest start to promote in contrast to pragmatic policy making you've got yourselves into on your own merits. Remember that "history is a battleground of ideas" and usually the most consistent win. The socialists, Left, Muslims, and other anti-western thinkers are winning. It's time to shred these shadows and start coming into the light.
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
My Unofficial Hiatus and a Late Happy Valentine's Day.
Hello again everyone.
I wish to apologize about my unofficial hiatus after trying to figure out things and with my current job search often getting more involved than ever, I've been writing on this post less often but I now hope to write an article every week when a good subject comes and depending on what is around. Now with a plethora of political posts, new stories for me to read, and new entertaining movies and shows, I have a lot I want to talk about as well as some future plans with my writing and my life as well. But as of today, I wanted to give a simple shout out to everyone.
I just want to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day, whether you're celebrating with friends, family, or your significant other's I want to wish you all a nice day where you can be with loved ones or if loved one's are away are thinking of you every day. Either soldiers missing their spouses and families, employees traveling to work, those traveling out away from their loved ones, or for any reason in particular, there is someone thinking about you and you are loved.
Happy Valentine's Day!
I wish to apologize about my unofficial hiatus after trying to figure out things and with my current job search often getting more involved than ever, I've been writing on this post less often but I now hope to write an article every week when a good subject comes and depending on what is around. Now with a plethora of political posts, new stories for me to read, and new entertaining movies and shows, I have a lot I want to talk about as well as some future plans with my writing and my life as well. But as of today, I wanted to give a simple shout out to everyone.
I just want to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day, whether you're celebrating with friends, family, or your significant other's I want to wish you all a nice day where you can be with loved ones or if loved one's are away are thinking of you every day. Either soldiers missing their spouses and families, employees traveling to work, those traveling out away from their loved ones, or for any reason in particular, there is someone thinking about you and you are loved.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Saturday, January 14, 2017
A Series of Darkly Enjoyable Events: A Review of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
If you are looking for a review for a wonderfully amazing series featuring amazing adventures, wonderful triumphs, a happy ending for all, I'm extremely sorry to say but this is not the review you should be reading. This is because this review is about a show with not only no happy ending but no happy beginning and well very luckily a few good happy things in the middle. This is because the children focused on this series named Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire have suffered A Series of Unfortunate Events. This review of the series also has a few spoiler alerts. A "spoiler alert" is a modern slang phrase meaning "a revealing of an event in a story that will ruin the plot for those who have never watched it." But this case a spoiler alert is needed for such an awful and miserable series. Wouldn't you rather be interested in a review of a series about how prison colors are in as a new black, or a Cuban-American family tackling life one day at a time, or maybe focus on an animated series with gigantic fighting robots in space controlled by humans inside them?
Plot:
The story of the Baudelaire Children takes place at first on a Briny Beach where the children have a natural day of fun on a cloudy, murky day. Murky is a phrase which hear means "Gloomy due to the mist around the beach." And in that murky misty fog around the beach, Mr. Poe, the children's banker and executor of their parent's estate, meets them to give them the most unfortunate news that their parents have died in a fire that also destroyed their mansion. Thus he takes them to visit Count Olaf, their 3rd cousin 4 times removed or their 4th cousin 3 times removed, as he is their to be their guardian. However, he tries but luckily fails to usurp their fortune in the first two episodes. However, Olaf and his evil theatrical troupe, all of which are not only the most despicable people I would ever not wish to meet and also never involve myself at a dinner party with were also terrible actors, have disguised themselves very badly but have failed to be noticed by anyone until too late. Also involved in the series is a mysterious, often limited, narrator named Lemony Snicket who is responsible for chronicling our story. Chronicling is word which hear means "recording the story from every terrible moment and event that would put tears in your eyes."
The series itself is based off of the 13 books by Lemony Snicket. The first season focused on the first four novels respectively named The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, and The Miserable Mill. This series known for its very forsaken drama with the children, the usage of figurative language and word play, overuse of dramatic irony, and a unique syntax (syntax is a word which here means the styling of the sentence structure intended to emphasis a specific purpose especially to that of 3 orphans in melancholy)that adds to the word play in these stories. Also included is the many musings and interruptions of our narrator, Lemony Snicket, with telling this tale as well as learning more about him and his motives for weaving this tale of woe. This was the primary challenge with adapting this series with including the every unique word told with a very forlorn definition, Lemony's interaction with readers turned into audience viewers at home or on the train, plane and automobile they decide to watch in, and the linguistic (which here means a gigantic love of words) adoration given to reading and the spoken word. Fortunately, that aspect was translated successfully into this TV series.
Writer Daniel Handler, the official name of Lemony Snicket and real author of A Series of Unfortunate Events, has written 5 episodes with Emily Fox, Joe Trancz, and Tatiana Suarez-Pico each writing one. Every episode faithfully retells Snicket's style from the wordplay to the many pop-culture and high culture (authors primarily but also musicians, directors, scientists, and books) referenes. All episodes give each book time to breath to allow the books to be told and every episode not only feels like the misadventure of a lifetime, but also a hide and seek game for every cultural reference made to every Latin phrase and dictionary word included in the screenplay. A minor but just as important element in this series are the anachronisms found. From the clothing styles from various decades in the 20th century to the mixed technology to the pop culture references each of these give a slight unease to pinpointing not only when but where the series does take place as part of the original story. So as Netflix marketed the series to all demographics, the children will see the fun and amazing clever antics and story of the children with the script being enjoyable for the adults.
Characters and Actors:
The children are played by Malina Weissman who is Violet, Louis Hynes plays Klaus, and Presley Smith as Sunny with her voice for her shrieks being played by voice actress Tara Strong. Each child is given their chance to shine with Violet's inventions, Klaus' knowledge in an assortment of ideas and subjects, and Sunny is exceptionally good with biting objects but her character is expanded upon with being a poker hustler as well. Each actor does an excellent job with portraying their Baudelaire character and have truly pulled their weight in getting the audience to feel sympathy and pity for the children as they continually try to escape and end foiling Count Olaf's schemes.
Playing the role of the "Famously Renowned" Count Olaf is actor, singer, producer, director, and theatrical renaissance man Neil Patrick Harris. Renaissance man is a phrase which hear means a multi-talented person usually in more than one subject. Harris's portrayal as Olaf is the perfect combination of hammy, vain, twisted, evil, and threatening. Unlike Jim Carrey, who was more of a goofball and not so bright Olaf, Harris goes with being as faithful to the source material and even tries his hardest to be a bad actor with even worse disguises. But even the disguises are just as fun when we see Harris don prosthetic, makeup and costume to be all the bad disguises that enables him to fool all adults in his way.
Patrick Warburton plays narrator and series "creator" Lemony Snicket. Warburton for me was the actor I was the most unsure he would excel due to knowing from prior work like Seinfeld and Family Guy and usually Patrick Warburton acts like, well, Patrick Warburton. But every so often he get's a role that I can say he is this character. Lemony Snicket is one of those roles. The way he delivers the lines is in a combination of deadpan and wry humor laced with irony told in the best of way. Warburton delivers his narration wonderfully with being both omniscient as well as being fly on the wall due to his limited knowledge of his research in the Baudelaire story.
As well as a great opening cast, the guest and recurring actors also bring a vibrancy to the world of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Joan Cusack, Aasif Mandvi, Alfre Woodard, and Don Johnson play some of the many adults involved the children's lives (mostly guardians of various helping ability). Each actor breathes life into each respective guardians with both their amazing knowledge in various studies (Law for Justice Strauss, Herpetology for Uncle Monty, Grammar for Josephine, and Economics and Lumber Mill Managing for Sir; each of the actors played each respective role in order) but also their flaws. Each actor gives these characters the much needed personality not given in the 2004 movie adaptation.
Of course when it comes to a movie, so many things can happen as a good thing thing but some can happen as a bad thing. the bad thing happening was that many of the characters did not get fully fleshed out. (The phrase fully fleshed out means to give a good length to understand the characters.) The film adaption unfortunately did not do this. Luckily the series does this with getting everyone fleshed out and had each character shine every time.
But back to the review of our cast, Count Olaf is also given a odd assortment of actors playing the theatrical troupe Count Olaf has decided to get involved with his antics including a hooked-handed man, two powder faced ladies possibly sisters, a tall bald man, and a person of androgynous appearance. Even these awful people and such awful actors are given their chances in the limelight with terrible acting chops as well as their disguises give them a new enhanced character from the oddly stock character style Handler makes them in the original novels until he fleshes out their characteristics in the later books. The series gives him ample room to develop the theater troupe in their deviously wacky ways.
Settings and Costume Design:
The main settings of the show are inspired by mix of Gothic storytelling, anachronisms, light surrealism, and an extensive attention to details with an extensive color palate, and also using elements of Wes Anderson's surreal and symmetrical style. Also following this style is the lighter colors of the Baudelaire Children and the darker tones of the unsafe environments and villains clothes. Also included is a Burtonesque style in the series mostly from one would see in Edward Scissorhands thanks in part to Bo Welch, who actually was involved in Burton's earlier films including Edward Scissorhands. And despite the the nods I've scene in reference to both directors, the series still feels fresh and original thanks to Handler's creation of the universe and the acquisition of a great crew that makes good use of some of the most attractively made sets in a show that I've ever seen. Sometimes I can tell when the CGI is a little fake like certain parts of the Wide Window's usage of creating the waters of Lake Lachrymose but there are times where it blends well into the scenes too like when it comes to the sky environments of Uncle Monty and Justice Strauss's homes and the eerie leeches of Lake Lachrymose. All in all, the settings are gorgeous to look at and makes one feel like we could be watching an elaborate stage play with a budget they asked for and received.
Final Verdict:
A Series of Unfortunate Events is a truly fanatical and fantastic and wonderful series with mixing the story's plot line and the twists and turns of new interconnected plots to the story. I give this series a 4.5 out of 5 stars. And good news is that we'll be getting season 2 to get filmed starting in April.
If you are looking for a review for a wonderfully amazing series featuring amazing adventures, wonderful triumphs, a happy ending for all, I'm extremely sorry to say but this is not the review you should be reading. This is because this review is about a show with not only no happy ending but no happy beginning and well very luckily a few good happy things in the middle. This is because the children focused on this series named Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire have suffered A Series of Unfortunate Events. This review of the series also has a few spoiler alerts. A "spoiler alert" is a modern slang phrase meaning "a revealing of an event in a story that will ruin the plot for those who have never watched it." But this case a spoiler alert is needed for such an awful and miserable series. Wouldn't you rather be interested in a review of a series about how prison colors are in as a new black, or a Cuban-American family tackling life one day at a time, or maybe focus on an animated series with gigantic fighting robots in space controlled by humans inside them?
Plot:
The story of the Baudelaire Children takes place at first on a Briny Beach where the children have a natural day of fun on a cloudy, murky day. Murky is a phrase which hear means "Gloomy due to the mist around the beach." And in that murky misty fog around the beach, Mr. Poe, the children's banker and executor of their parent's estate, meets them to give them the most unfortunate news that their parents have died in a fire that also destroyed their mansion. Thus he takes them to visit Count Olaf, their 3rd cousin 4 times removed or their 4th cousin 3 times removed, as he is their to be their guardian. However, he tries but luckily fails to usurp their fortune in the first two episodes. However, Olaf and his evil theatrical troupe, all of which are not only the most despicable people I would ever not wish to meet and also never involve myself at a dinner party with were also terrible actors, have disguised themselves very badly but have failed to be noticed by anyone until too late. Also involved in the series is a mysterious, often limited, narrator named Lemony Snicket who is responsible for chronicling our story. Chronicling is word which hear means "recording the story from every terrible moment and event that would put tears in your eyes."
The series itself is based off of the 13 books by Lemony Snicket. The first season focused on the first four novels respectively named The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, and The Miserable Mill. This series known for its very forsaken drama with the children, the usage of figurative language and word play, overuse of dramatic irony, and a unique syntax (syntax is a word which here means the styling of the sentence structure intended to emphasis a specific purpose especially to that of 3 orphans in melancholy)that adds to the word play in these stories. Also included is the many musings and interruptions of our narrator, Lemony Snicket, with telling this tale as well as learning more about him and his motives for weaving this tale of woe. This was the primary challenge with adapting this series with including the every unique word told with a very forlorn definition, Lemony's interaction with readers turned into audience viewers at home or on the train, plane and automobile they decide to watch in, and the linguistic (which here means a gigantic love of words) adoration given to reading and the spoken word. Fortunately, that aspect was translated successfully into this TV series.
Writer Daniel Handler, the official name of Lemony Snicket and real author of A Series of Unfortunate Events, has written 5 episodes with Emily Fox, Joe Trancz, and Tatiana Suarez-Pico each writing one. Every episode faithfully retells Snicket's style from the wordplay to the many pop-culture and high culture (authors primarily but also musicians, directors, scientists, and books) referenes. All episodes give each book time to breath to allow the books to be told and every episode not only feels like the misadventure of a lifetime, but also a hide and seek game for every cultural reference made to every Latin phrase and dictionary word included in the screenplay. A minor but just as important element in this series are the anachronisms found. From the clothing styles from various decades in the 20th century to the mixed technology to the pop culture references each of these give a slight unease to pinpointing not only when but where the series does take place as part of the original story. So as Netflix marketed the series to all demographics, the children will see the fun and amazing clever antics and story of the children with the script being enjoyable for the adults.
Characters and Actors:
The children are played by Malina Weissman who is Violet, Louis Hynes plays Klaus, and Presley Smith as Sunny with her voice for her shrieks being played by voice actress Tara Strong. Each child is given their chance to shine with Violet's inventions, Klaus' knowledge in an assortment of ideas and subjects, and Sunny is exceptionally good with biting objects but her character is expanded upon with being a poker hustler as well. Each actor does an excellent job with portraying their Baudelaire character and have truly pulled their weight in getting the audience to feel sympathy and pity for the children as they continually try to escape and end foiling Count Olaf's schemes.
Playing the role of the "Famously Renowned" Count Olaf is actor, singer, producer, director, and theatrical renaissance man Neil Patrick Harris. Renaissance man is a phrase which hear means a multi-talented person usually in more than one subject. Harris's portrayal as Olaf is the perfect combination of hammy, vain, twisted, evil, and threatening. Unlike Jim Carrey, who was more of a goofball and not so bright Olaf, Harris goes with being as faithful to the source material and even tries his hardest to be a bad actor with even worse disguises. But even the disguises are just as fun when we see Harris don prosthetic, makeup and costume to be all the bad disguises that enables him to fool all adults in his way.
Patrick Warburton plays narrator and series "creator" Lemony Snicket. Warburton for me was the actor I was the most unsure he would excel due to knowing from prior work like Seinfeld and Family Guy and usually Patrick Warburton acts like, well, Patrick Warburton. But every so often he get's a role that I can say he is this character. Lemony Snicket is one of those roles. The way he delivers the lines is in a combination of deadpan and wry humor laced with irony told in the best of way. Warburton delivers his narration wonderfully with being both omniscient as well as being fly on the wall due to his limited knowledge of his research in the Baudelaire story.
As well as a great opening cast, the guest and recurring actors also bring a vibrancy to the world of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Joan Cusack, Aasif Mandvi, Alfre Woodard, and Don Johnson play some of the many adults involved the children's lives (mostly guardians of various helping ability). Each actor breathes life into each respective guardians with both their amazing knowledge in various studies (Law for Justice Strauss, Herpetology for Uncle Monty, Grammar for Josephine, and Economics and Lumber Mill Managing for Sir; each of the actors played each respective role in order) but also their flaws. Each actor gives these characters the much needed personality not given in the 2004 movie adaptation.
Of course when it comes to a movie, so many things can happen as a good thing thing but some can happen as a bad thing. the bad thing happening was that many of the characters did not get fully fleshed out. (The phrase fully fleshed out means to give a good length to understand the characters.) The film adaption unfortunately did not do this. Luckily the series does this with getting everyone fleshed out and had each character shine every time.
But back to the review of our cast, Count Olaf is also given a odd assortment of actors playing the theatrical troupe Count Olaf has decided to get involved with his antics including a hooked-handed man, two powder faced ladies possibly sisters, a tall bald man, and a person of androgynous appearance. Even these awful people and such awful actors are given their chances in the limelight with terrible acting chops as well as their disguises give them a new enhanced character from the oddly stock character style Handler makes them in the original novels until he fleshes out their characteristics in the later books. The series gives him ample room to develop the theater troupe in their deviously wacky ways.
Settings and Costume Design:
The main settings of the show are inspired by mix of Gothic storytelling, anachronisms, light surrealism, and an extensive attention to details with an extensive color palate, and also using elements of Wes Anderson's surreal and symmetrical style. Also following this style is the lighter colors of the Baudelaire Children and the darker tones of the unsafe environments and villains clothes. Also included is a Burtonesque style in the series mostly from one would see in Edward Scissorhands thanks in part to Bo Welch, who actually was involved in Burton's earlier films including Edward Scissorhands. And despite the the nods I've scene in reference to both directors, the series still feels fresh and original thanks to Handler's creation of the universe and the acquisition of a great crew that makes good use of some of the most attractively made sets in a show that I've ever seen. Sometimes I can tell when the CGI is a little fake like certain parts of the Wide Window's usage of creating the waters of Lake Lachrymose but there are times where it blends well into the scenes too like when it comes to the sky environments of Uncle Monty and Justice Strauss's homes and the eerie leeches of Lake Lachrymose. All in all, the settings are gorgeous to look at and makes one feel like we could be watching an elaborate stage play with a budget they asked for and received.
Final Verdict:
A Series of Unfortunate Events is a truly fanatical and fantastic and wonderful series with mixing the story's plot line and the twists and turns of new interconnected plots to the story. I give this series a 4.5 out of 5 stars. And good news is that we'll be getting season 2 to get filmed starting in April.
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