Fergus NoodleI figured that out ages ago which is why I rarely went to school
i used to care about perfect attendance (i had zero absent days last year) then i realized school is a big piece of shit trash created by big gay baby idiots for the sole purpose of industrializing children and defining their worth by test scores
and that is the exact moment when i stopped caring about perfect attendance
one of the things I wish I had in school was a better sense of how little my permanent record was going to matter in my life
If you follow the rules (and pay producer Patrice Wilson "$2,000-$4,000"), you too can be an Ark Music Factory star. There's something always equally mind-numbing and impressively catchy about Wilson's rolling band of graduates. His newest is Alison Gold, whose "Chinese Food" features multicultural subtitles, plates full of egg rolls, and Wilson as a rapping panda bear. It will also make you question whether Ark Music Factory's big hit, Rebecca Black's "Friday," was actually "the worst." It has some new competition.
Read more posts by Lindsey Weber
Filed Under: music ,friday ,rebecca black ,ark music factory ,chinese food ,earworms ,video
by john dubrow
The Angel
by DAN CARVILLE
I saw her at a stoplight, through the window of my car, long afterwards. Early morning. The first inches of dawn touched her shoulders. I had a passenger in my car, a friend of mine who I have not seen since he moved to Salinas. He sang along with what was on the radio. As we passed her, trailing a suitcase with a long handle, my friend stopped his singing. He said, "Can there be a single hour left in this night?"
I drove cars many times after that. But I did not enjoy it anymore. How could I, when the possibility remained of passing by another person I know better than myself, moving so fast momentum alone might take me miles beyond her?
I dislike rhetorical questions intensely, but I have to admit the world is filled with them.
I never understood the intimacy of others, or could see myself taking part in it, until I met her. Since she left, I lost whatever understanding she gave me. A key frame, redrawn on paper. One conversation I had with her keeps recurring in my mind.
Flashing her blue eyes, she said, "Dan, you have to stop." I asked what she meant.
"You know, of course, the story of the acolyte?"
I said I did not. She told the fable. It was about a student who invested nearly everything in his instructor, until he heard himself referred to by his teacher as a slave. The student was despondent and suicidal until the master explained that he had done it on purpose in order to shatter the student's imperfect view of him.
I did not ask the relevance of this tale, both because I dreaded the answer, and because there is no real way to make a woman tell you anything she does not want to. I explained this to her. Her face wrinkled, like she was about to spit something disgusting out of her mouth. She was silent for a few moments.
Then she shouted, "But did you ask me? But did you ask me? But did you ask me?" She forgave me in minutes.
She would not let me touch her for the first month. The anticipation was a monkish ritual to be enjoyed and loathed in equal part. I wondered aloud why she chose this. Did she not want to be with me the way I wanted to be with her?
She laughed and said, "What are you thinking now?" She repeated herself a lot, usually to be silly. I could not help loving that aspect of her, and when she was gone it was the first thing I mocked, quietly to myself. I was at the airport, flying back to New York. I watched a woman repair a wheelchair with one hand. Families and couples criss-crossed each other, alternately wiping off and enclosing their hands in soft, white, slightly damp paper. I said to myself, "What are you thinking now, Dan?" and I said it more than once, more than enough.
I first met her when she was dating a TA I knew from college named Mark. Even though I rarely kept up with my college friends, I would catch up with Mark from time to time. In those days he had a marvelous mind: vindictive, forceful and empathetic all at once. I remember us both walking out of some seminar on the Palestinian situation once we saw the syllabus.
Mark saw the world as an ancient husk. I will not say he hated it. He felt that the idea of improving it was completely in vain, and self-important besides. It was difficult but not impossible to reconcile this idea with the little goatee I never saw him without.
Mark had told me his girlfriend was a musician long before I met them for drinks, and even sent me a few of her songs. I never planned to listen to those mp3s, but I did find it very sweet and maybe a little childish that he wanted my approval. I am not sure what he saw in me, really. It only occurs to me now that he may simply not have had many friends in the husk.
I remember coming home from a Greenwich Village bar at the end of that night. I see myself then as a flame shaped like a man, so excited was I at being able to hear her music; somewhat upset that I had possessed this kind of treasure days prior without knowing it. (But it was not just that. It was also the idea that I might also have, within the walls of the apartment I shared with a computer science PhD named Amil, so many other secret delights waiting to be found.)
She took a job at Columbia and now lived uptown. Mark visited and wrote her from Ann Arbor. I knew I had to break them up somehow, but my options were limited. If she would willingly deceive Mark to be with me, I could not respect her; if something trivial could cleanse her feelings, then I could not really trust her.
After a few days, I just called her. I did not really care at that point, so many times had I given myself over to her voice, her fey discretion, the blush in her face. (I would have also been similarly thrilled by the girl in Willy Wonka who turned into a massive blueberry, had she only become a round, shy cherry instead.)
Dumbly I asked if she remembered me.
"Yes, Dan. I am glad you called," she said.
Despite myself, even though every part of me knew I should not say the word, because I am always frowning at good fortune and expecting bad, I asked why.
She said, "Do you know the story of the falcon, the angel and the death adder?" I said I did not. She e-mailed to me.
I read it quickly and asked, "Which one am I?" I already knew which she represented.
On the other end of the line, I heard her laugh again, chalky and solid like her lower half. "That is the right answer, Dan. I only want to know those who cannot immediately tell which they are." That in her delicious accent.
by john dubrow
I met her in the park regularly after that. She would talk to me for hours, never flinching when what I wanted to discuss seemed flimsy even for me. (Once I asked her what she thought about the death penalty and she just rolled her eyes.) We would write when we did not meet, posing each other so many questions. Finally, in Sheep Meadow, I broached the subject that had been on my mind, although I would be lying if I said it was torturing me.
"Have you told Mark about us?" I said. Her first answer would be definitive, final - anything else would be merely apology or confession.
She said, "Dan, what did he tell you? That I am his girlfriend?" I nodded.
She said, "That night we met, do you know what he said to me before we went to you? I can see that you do not, and I am sorry. I thought you knew." Her hair shivered and she touched my body with some blunt instrument. It may have been her hand.
"It was just before we left. He said, 'If you don't like Dan, I will futilely try not to hold it against you.'"
I said that seemed like a nice compliment, but that that I did not fully understand. She watched a group of babies fight over a toy shaped like a fat orange cat and brushed strands of dark hair back from her face. She said, "It may seem like we stop..."
She said, "It may seem like I stopped loving him, but that's not true. I only stopped acknowledging his love."
by John Dubrow
I think about that almost every morning, since she is no longer here, since she will not say something more destructive to replace that original thought. At first I concluded that those who always gave so much of themselves were by their nature also the cruellest. I hope I am not like that, but I think what she was saying is that we all are.
But then, it seemed like she would never stop wanting me. Unlike anyone else, she never made demands on sex, attaching it to no other part of our lives. Amil moved in with his boyfriend in Prospect Heights and she took his room. Because I snore, we often slept in separate beds. The other reason was that she used her sleeping place also as a sort of office, although she would allow me in it if I asked.
(Do you know how hard it is for me to say or hear her name? I know I cannot put it down here, either. For her to recognize me in real life, putting her suitcase aside for one moment, dropping it fully to the ground, would be nothing. She cannot see me in my writing, she must only see herself.)
After I saw her at the stoplight that day, I again started every morning with thoughts of her. I replayed the most eventful of our past conversations constantly. Paranoia enveloped my brain; I tried and failed to distrust her in retrospect. I thought of e-mailing Mark and asking questions I had held close for so long, but if he felt the same way I did, then I would no longer be suffering alone. (Had he given her to me?) I dreaded the idea of not being original.
Here is the story of the falcon, the angel and the death adder:
The falcon always soared as high as she could, and descended as low. One day an angel appeared to her at the top of her flight. The angel told the falcon that she could soar even higher than the sun, but that she might not be able to return to Earth. The falcon asked how she would feed herself. The angel answered that he, the angel, would provide an appropriate source of sustenance. The falcon asked for a day to consider and the angel agreed.
The falcon flew as low as she could, until the sun dropped out of view. There, in the bowels of Earth, she met the death adder. The death adder told her that she could fly even lower, into the world beneath the world, where she could eat and laugh and love forever with others like her. The falcon asked what she would have to do in return. The death adder said nothing, except that she could never again go to the top of the world, but would have to be content with the space between, where other birds flew nearby.
The falcon asked for a day to consider things. The death adder stuck out his long tongue, but agreed.
The falcon dropped to an old man's porch while she considered these two fine offers. The old man came out to give her a few scraps and leftovers such as he had. He asked the falcon where she planned to fly next.
"I don't know," the falcon said, shaking her dark little head. She could not meet the old man's eyes, knowing that if she did, the man might sense an inclination in her twisted face. "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know..."
Dan Carville is the senior contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in Brooklyn. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here. He last wrote in these pages about the photographer Abelardo Morell.
Paintings by John Dubrow.
by john dubrow
"Gunshotta" - Machinedrum (mp3)
"Stirrin" - Machinedrum (mp3)
The new album from Travis Stewart is entitled Vapor City and it was released on September 30th.
by John Dubrow
Congratulations Michel! You win!
Read the more nuanced analysis at Urban Demographics.
Have a scholar we should commemorate? Send us something wacky and we will!
Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)
Fergus NoodleLast image so creepy
*trigger warning for sexual violence; not safe for work*
In a wonderful article called It’s Only a Penis, anthropologist Christine Helliwell talks of how her time with the Dayak community of Gerai in Indonesian Borneo changed her perceptions of the sexual body. She writes of a time when a man crept through a window and into the bed of a sleeping woman. She continues:
[She] awoke, in darkness, to feel the man inside her mosquito net, gripping her shoulder while he climbed under the blanket… He was whispering, “be quiet, be quiet!” She responded by sitting up in bed and pushing him violently, so that he stumbled backward [and] became entangled with her mosquito net… His hurried exit through the window, with his clothes now in considerable disarray, was accompanied by a stream of abuse from the woman and by excited interrogations from wakened neighbors in adjoining houses.
The next morning:
I awoke… to raucous laughter on the longhouse verandah outside my apartment where a group of elderly women gathered… They were recounting this tale loudly, and with enormous enjoyment… one was engaged in mimicking the man climbing out the window, sarong falling down, genitals askew… both men and women shrieked with laughter.
Helliwell was appalled. It sounded to her Western ears like a case of attempted rape. It was frightening, not funny. But, when she explained to the local women that what he did was bad, one replied, “No, no bad, simply stupid.” Helliwell turned to the woman who had been approached by the man and said, “He was trying to hurt you.” She replied, “It’s only a penis. How can a penis hurt anyone?” The Gerai had no word for “rape.”
I often think of this story when observing the way that women’s and men’s genitals are represented in Western culture. I find the Gerai’s perspective intuitively pleasing. Penises are, in fact, very sensitive dangly bits imbued with much importance. I can imagine a culture in which their vulnerability was front-and-center, so to speak. I’m reminded of an observation made by my colleague Caroline Heldman regarding the seemingly secret pact of all men not to fight “below the belt” so as to never draw attention to men’s obvious and uniquely male physical weakness.
Yet, in Western cultures, we do imagine the penis to be a potentially threatening piece of anatomy. In contrast, Helliwell writes, the vagina is often “conceived of as a delicate, perhaps inevitably damaged and pained inner space.” Accordingly, we have collectively agreed to somehow believe that penises are potentially brutalizing and vaginas easily brutalized.
Where do these ideas come from? Well, here’s a clue: the frequency with which penises are represented, literally, as weapons. Kira recently sent in this example: a lubricant with the name “Gun Oil” advertised in the San Jose Mercury News (this is also going straight to our pointlessly gendered products page).
A while back, we received this safer sex ad from Germany:
And Julie C. sent along a link to a set of safer sex ads that included these three:
While I am all for encouraging sexual pleasure and safer sex, I would prefer that such efforts not conflate the penis with a weapon. Doing so only contributes to the idea that the penis is inherently useful for enacting violence and women’s bodies naturally vulnerable to violation from men. Moreover, Helliwell’s experience suggests that this isn’t simply imaginary, but may also contribute to the enactment of violence or lack thereof.
Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)
I don’t know either. Here’s a compilation while you puzzle it out.
Mariska Hargitay, NoMore.Org
Known to millions of viewers as Detective Olivia Benson on Law and Order: SVU, TV star Mariska Hargitay has just recently amped up her own “real life” activism with her involvement in the NO MORE campaign. The new campaign raises awareness about domestic violence and sexual assault through celebrity PSAs, social media strategy, and perhaps most importantly, offers resources for survivors.
Although the NO MORE campaign has just launched, Hargitay is no stranger to the world of anti-violence organizing: nearly ten years ago, inspired by her role on SVU, Mariska formed her own organization, the Joyful Heart Foundation, which works to support sexual assault survivors.
And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five with Mariska Hargitay.
Suzanna Bobadilla: Can you describe how your acting career has influenced your anti-gender violence activism? It’s really emotionally tough stuff; what strategies do you use to help you stay engaged in this work?
Mariska Hargitay: When I first did research for my role on SVU, I couldn’t believe the stats I was finding. Then the letters started coming to me from viewers. First a few, then more, then hundreds, and thousands since then. The women and men writing the letters didn’t ask for an autograph or a headshot. They disclosed their stories of abuse. I held in my hands the stories behind the statistics that I had learned. And they just made a very deep impression on me.
So I educated myself about these issues. I trained to become a rape crisis advocate, I joined Boards, I got involved. I was proud to be on a show that was brave enough to go into territory that no one was talking about, but I also knew I wanted to do more and play a larger role to help survivors heal and reclaim their lives.
The Joyful Heart Foundation was my answer, which I started in 2004. We’ve raised more than 14 million dollars in private funds, directly served over 13,000 survivors and the professionals who care for them, and connected with over a million individuals through education and awareness initiatives. We’ve also championed critical legislation and policy reforms to pursue justice for survivors, including the All-Crimes DNA law in New York State, the first of its kind in the country. And we’re at the forefront of the movement to test the hundreds of thousands of untested sexual assault evidence collection kits – known as rape kits – sitting in police storage and crime lab facilities across the country. For more information of the rape kit backlog, go to www.endthebacklog.org.
As far as staying engaged in this work goes, sometimes I find that it actually takes conscious effort to disengage from it. I’ve heard that from a lot of advocates. For example, I find myself always asking about the crime rate whenever I visit a place I haven’t been before. A friend told me once that she was on a family vacation on a beach in Hawaii, and all she could think about was how far away the nearest Level 1 Trauma Center was in case of an emergency. So a big part of being able to stay in this work is having strategies for stepping off the field and taking the time to catch your breath, so that when you step back on the field, you can continue to do your best work.
One tried and true strategy for me is laughter. It’s a cliché, but it really is the best medicine. When I’m cracking up about something, it’s almost like I can feel my brain getting rewired. Another thing that can really shift my thinking is to find my way back to gratitude. I say “find my way back” because it’s really easy to lose sight of the fact that it’s a privilege to do this work. I’m blessed to have the opportunity to be engaged like this, and I feel myself let go a little when I get back in touch with that truth. And lastly, a nice hot bath is high on my list too. Sometimes just a little self care goes a long way. It’s a good way to send a signal to yourself that you also have an important place among the people you’re caring for and about.
SB: What makes NO MORE different from other anti-gender violence campaigns? Can you share partnerships/innovations that make you particularly proud?
MH: For the first time in history, the domestic violence and sexual assault movements are coming together under one symbol and one unifying message: “NO MORE. Together we can end domestic violence and sexual assault.”
The significance of that unity is not to be underestimated. Because these issues have been so underfunded, organizations have had to stand out to receive support, which, by definition, means that they have had to stand alone. But that is going to change. It’s not a coincidence that the first word in the NO MORE declaration is “Together.” It’s great news for those working to end this violence, bad news for perpetrators who will surely experience the power of that unity.
And it isn’t only the movement coming together. NO MORE engages and invites all sectors of society committed to ending this violence. As the collective of people willing to take a stand grows, the weight of these heavy issues, the weight of having these difficult conversations, the weight of bringing enormous social and cultural change, will begin to be more evenly distributed. With more people doing what they can, advocates and survivors will no longer have to shoulder so much of the burden of bringing attention to this cause.
And NO MORE doesn’t aim to compete with the field for funding. Instead, the goal of NO MORE is to lift up the entire movement and push forward its many advocate partners so that they can reap the benefits of greater awareness – and increased funding that will become available as these issues move towards the center of public and institutional concern. And the research that will be done. And the public policies that could change. That’s a real turning point in this movement.
Another remarkable aspect of NO MORE is the top-down, bottom up approach. There are those participating at the highest levels of government, those working to engage more corporate involvement and forge high-level media partnerships and, at the same time, those individual advocates across the country gaining strength from this unified effort. Just to name one example, one friend who works in the Midwest for a domestic violence organization, the only one covering an enormous area, told me she always felt so isolated in her work. She said what’s even more isolating is the conversations – or non-conversations – she has about her line of work. “People just really don’t want to hear about it,” she told me. “But I can’t tell you how empowering it is to be able to point to the NO MORE symbol and know that I’m part of a bigger movement. And I’m so proud to be able to point to it and say, ‘Look at that. That’s what I do. That’s what I stand for.’ It’s a real gift to those of us out in the field.”
On a personal note, directing the NO MORE PSAs was a dream come true. What we saw during the filming, brave and strong and authentic person after person, was people standing up for each other, for the people they love, for their partners, wives, husbands, children, friends, mothers and fathers, for people they’ve never met, for themselves. I was just moved beyond words.
Society still misplaces the shame and stigma on survivors – it’s embedded in the way we think and talk about these issues – and it has to end. A vital goal of NO MORE is to lift that shame and stigma, to liberate the conversation from the attitudes that have suppressed it for so long. Once the conversation begins, the actual depth of people’s concern about sexual assault and domestic violence often comes out. But those same people haven’t had a way to demonstrate publicly that these are issues they think about. That’s where the NO MORE symbol comes in. It’s the simplest, most eloquent way to say, “This matters to me.”
Simply put, NO MORE is a commitment, a vision, a line drawn – and most of all, a call to action. Like the red ribbon for AIDS or the pink ribbon for breast cancer our hope is that NO MORE will break down the barriers that prevent people from talking about the issues and taking action to prevent them. I have to say, I look at how people have shown up for this effort – corporations, artists, marketing and advertising geniuses, volunteers – and it fills me with so much confidence and renewed hope.
SB: What would you say to someone who thinks they might be/have experienced domestic violence and/or sexual assault?
MH: Before I answer more completely, let me say that first and most importantly, if you’re in an emergency situation, always call 911. Emergency situations can include a recent threat of violence, a recent act of violence, or if your safety or someone else’s is in imminent danger.
The next most important point: you’re not alone. The experience of sexual assault and/or domestic violence can be extremely isolating. Some might even say these acts cannot exist without isolation, that perpetrators depend on it. So I would speak against that very clearly and say, emphatically: you’re not alone.
At Joyful Heart, we talk about a society that says, “We hear you. We believe you. And your healing is our priority.” Unfortunately, that’s not society’s central message. Society tends to question, doubt and assign blame. So that’s the next thing I would say: “Tell me what happened. I want to hear.” And then I would listen. Simply listen. Without judgment.
And then I would say to the person how deeply sorry I am for what happened, and I would talk about the resources I think would serve that person best. I always remind myself that I don’t have to be an expert, I just have to care. A lot. If the first organization isn’t the right fit, I’d make sure to stay in the person’s life enough so that I can follow up and try another organization.
So if you think you might have experienced domestic violence and/or a sexual assault, and if there is someone in your life whom you trust and who can listen to you in the way you want to be listened to, that could be a good place to begin. It is often good to talk about options together. If there is no such person – and it’s not your fault that there isn’t, because those people aren’t necessarily easy to come by – or if you feel more comfortable or safer contacting a service, there are many available, including:
And when you evaluate what happened to you, when you’re trying to make a judgment about whether something was sexual abuse or domestic violence, trust your inner voice. Survivors often say that there is a voice in them that tries to minimize what happened, a part of them that wants the abuse not to be true. But there is another voice that says: “This is not okay. This could escalate. I’m not being respected here. He just said it won’t happen again, but he said that last time.” And that’s the important voice to listen to in this situation. Sometimes being in danger starts with a subtle shift around respect. Tearing down how you look, how you talk, how you dress, what you think, what you say is not okay, and no one has the right to treat you that way.
No one action step is right for every person – but every person should know that they are supported in their individual choices. And one last time: you’re not alone.
SB: What are ways our readers can support the campaign?
MH: Perpetrators of violence have relied on the fact that the movement to stop them would not come together. They depend on our silence to keep doing what they do. And so we say to them in one collective voice: NO MORE. We will not be silent any longer.
SAY IT. Learn about these issues and talk openly about them. Break the silence. Speak out.
We’re not saying these issues are easy to talk about. They’re not. But for that very reason, we have to talk about them. And the more we talk, the easier the conversation will get.
SHARE IT. Help raise awareness about domestic violence and sexual assault by sharing NO MORE. Share the PSAs. Facebook it. Tweet it. Instagram it. Pin it.
We are examining and challenging longstanding societal and cultural attitudes. Have the courage to examine your own, then let your commitment to NO MORE encourage those around to do the same.
SHOW IT. Show NO MORE by wearing your NO MORE gear everyday, supporting partner groups working to end domestic violence and sexual assault and volunteering in your community.
Visibility will change the landscape for sexual assault and domestic violence. Don’t underestimate the light you can shed on these issues with these simple actions.
SB: And finally, a Feminsting Five tradition: you’re going to a desert island and get to take one food, one drink, and one feminist. What do you pick?
Food would be prosciutto. I know it’s salty and would make me crazy thirsty, but it’s totally worth it. Drink would be coconut water, to stay hydrated after all that prosciutto. And as for one feminist: Gloria Steinem. And we’d read her essay “If Men Could Menstruate” over and over again for entertainment.
Fergus NoodleWhat are meat sweats? I have never experienced these things
I’ve been dying to drag the boy along to HUX Bistro at Richard’s On the Park (41 Canley Vale Road, Canley Vale) ever since drooling all over a pic Baby Mooksy posted on the wonderful world that is Instagram. Oh and if that dude looks familiar it’s super nice guy 2011 Masterchef contestant Jay Huxley :P 
CHECK IT OUT!!! That beauty is a 1.3kg Tomahawk Ribeye on the bone ($88)! This special comes with 4 sides (with FREE refills!) and 3 sauces and it’s recommended to share between 2-3 people but lol Noods thought we could handle it. Famous last words…
Yeahhh baby! The Tomahawk does take a while to cook so be sure to call up (9755 5234) in advance if you have patience issues. 
Jay came out to slice up the Tomahawk for us and we were let in on a lil secret that suckling pig may appear on the menu soon woot
This steak was amazing. Quite possibly the best steak I’ve had all year! The blood cells in my anaemic body were crying in happiness at the overload of delicious protein entering my system. Man it was glorious! It had the perfect ratio of juicy tender meat to pockets of creamy fat! I don’t want to say it melts in the mouth because apparently only M&M’s melt in your mouth (and not in your hand) but damn it was mind blowingly awesome.
Aaaand of course I had to pick up the bone and gnaw at it caveman style. BEST FEELING EVER. Helloooo caramelised fatty edges!
Here’s 3/4 of the sides- fat golden fries which we dived right in before we eventually and reluctantly reached for the salad and steamed veggies when we started developing meat sweats. The three sauces were mushroom, pepper and uh nfi on the last one but I prefer eating steak sans sauce anyways.
And the 4th side! Even though they’re not made in house the onion rings get a pic by themselves because they were ridiculously addictive, golden and crisp they disappeared within seconds into our onion ring deprived souls.
Jason Jones talks to Gina Loudon, conservative analyst.
oh my fucking god
you guys
THIS ISN’T SKETCH COMEDY
THIS IS AN ACTUAL FUCKING CONSERVATIVE BEING INTERVIEWED
WHO SMILES AND SAYS “YES, THANKS” WHEN TOLD SHE’S BEING CONDESCENDING
AND WHO ACTUALLY BOASTS ABOUT REPUBLICANS NOT BEING ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE THINGS THEY EXPLAIN
THIS IS THE MOST PERFECT GIFSET ENCAPSULATION OF POE’S LAW I HAVE EVER SEEN
I AM OFFICIALLY 1000% DONE WITH AMERICAN POLITICS
this game is bullshit, you have to go through a tutorial until level 18, and your stats start to go down after level 30 not to mention the romance mini-game is hard as fuck
THIS.
sadly the PVP is a lie. You get a debuff called jail
it also fails to mention that once you hit level 18 it actually does have a monthly fee and it’s really fucking steep. but at that point everyone’s too invested to quit playing so ugh yeah
I don’t even get to choose anything about the initial details of my character.
>_>
Pff the graphics really suck, I needed to get a third party program just to make everything focus.
If the character they give you isn’t the right gender, the patch is expensive as hell and takes forever to install
I thought I was really good at this game, but there are millions of people better at it than I am. ::::/
I died ONCE and they closed my fucking account what the hell
i didnt even properly finish the tutorial they just boot you out of it when youre level 18 regardless
big glitch warning, my character can’t get out of the house! each time I try to move her she instantly sits back down on her couch… is anyone else having this problem?
Has anyone figured out who the developer of this game actually is yet?
Have you heard this young lady, Lorde, on the radio? Yesterday the New York Times posted a review of her recent performance at Webster Hall, and I’m kind of at a loss about the way that her big hit, Royals, is being talked about there and elsewhere. Now I’m a music lover, but since the only radio stations I listen to are the local hip hop station and NPR, I hadn’t heard this one – which I hear has been making the rounds on pop stations for a minute - until somewhat recently:
(Full transcript of lyrics at the end of post)
Folks who have spent some time with me know that I deeply love music videos, so when I saw this posted on social media, I went straight to the video. Holy. Shit. What did this white girl just say?
My friends and I – we’ve cracked the code.
We count our dollars on the train to the party.
And everyone who knows us knows that we’re fine with this,
We didn’t come from money.But every song’s like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin’ in the bathroom.
Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin’ the hotel room,
We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams.
But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your time piece.
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash
We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair
While I love a good critique of wealth accumulation and inequity, this song is not one; in fact, it is deeply racist. Because we all know who she’s thinking when we’re talking gold teeth, Cristal and Maybachs. So why shit on black folks? Why shit on rappers? Why aren’t we critiquing wealth by taking hits at golf or polo or Central Park East? Why not take to task the bankers and old-money folks who actually have a hand in perpetuating and increasing wealth inequality? I’m gonna take a guess: racism. I don’t have to explain why wealth operates differently among folks who’ve grown up struggling because this shit has been explained already: If you grew up with holes in your zapatos you’d celebrate the minute you was having dough.
The New York Times, however, thinks it’s just so fresh and insightful:
Ms. Perry and Ms. Cyrus sing about something teenage girls are presumed to have on their minds: what’s left of self-esteem after a breakup. (Dr. Luke, the architect of dozens of hit singles, collaborated on both songs.) Lorde, meanwhile, is singing about class consciousness and conspicuous consumption: the gap between pop-culture fantasies of Cadillacs and diamonds and the reality of being someone who “didn’t come from money.” It’s a thoughtful, calmly insubordinate song; it’s also written by an actual teenager.
While I am all about youth writing music that is targeted for youth, let’s not pretend that there is anything new about this particular kind of racism.
Yes, Lorde is only sixteen, but this is no viral video she put out outta her basement on her own; mad people signed off on this. Record execs have been working with her since she was 12; several, no, many people listened to this track, and saw no problem with it at all. And while I’m less mad at Lorde (who’s from New Zealand) than I am at the New York Times – and more generally white liberal critics that have been so captivated by Royals‘ call-out of consumption that they didn’t bother to take the time to think critically about the racial implications of the lyrics – this isn’t to say that there should be no accountability for her. I’m thinking of fierce youth activists who get it, are doing the work, and from whom Lorde could learn quite a bit. She apparently calls herself a feminist – let’s just hope her feminism gets a lot less racist as she develops as an artist.
Lyrics: Royals, by Lorde:
I’ve never seen a diamond in the flesh
I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies
And I’m not proud of my address,
In a torn-up town, no post code envy
But every song’s like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin’ in the bathroom
Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin’ the hotel room,
We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams.
But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your time piece.
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash.
We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair.
And we’ll never be royals.
It don’t run in our blood,
That kind of luxe just ain’t for us.
We crave a different kind of buzz.
Let me be your ruler,
You can call me queen Bee
And baby I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule.
Let me live that fantasy.
My friends and I – we’ve cracked the code.
We count our dollars on the train to the party.
And everyone who knows us knows that we’re fine with this,
We didn’t come from money.
But every song’s like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin’ in the bathroom.
Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin’ the hotel room,
We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams.
But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your time piece.
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash
We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair
And we’ll never be royals.
It don’t run in our blood
That kind of luxe just ain’t for us.
We crave a different kind of buzz.
Let me be your ruler,
You can call me queen Bee
And baby I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule.
Let me live that fantasy.
We’re bigger than we ever dreamed,
And I’m in love with being queen.
Life is great without a care
We aren’t caught up in your love affair.
And we’ll never be royals.
It don’t run in our blood
That kind of luxe just ain’t for us.
We crave a different kind of buzz
Let me be your ruler,
You can call me queen Bee
And baby I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule.
Let me live that fantasy.
is your man a dog lover? walk his dog to show you care about it. then keep walking. don’t return. you are now the proud owner of an adorable dog
when adults say “youth is wasted on the young” what is meant is “this is the only time to get really into a subculture and dress like it all the time and be able to excuse it later. my god. my fucking god. i never took the chance to dress like a dork ass cybergoth 24/7 when i was 16. now the opportunity is gone forever. don’t waste it. don’t waste it! buy some tripp pants and mesh shirts immediately and listen to a lot of KMFDM”
That’s fucking ridiculous. No one should have to wait 458 days for their fucking LUGGAGE.
Fuck you, pasta.
Guido Barilla, the chairman of (you guessed it) Barilla pasta, hates the gays. Grub Street writes:
[Barilla] went on a Radio24 program to explain the company’s apparent position against depicting gay couples or families in its advertisements. “I would never do (a commercial) with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect but because we don’t agree with them. Ours is a classic family where the woman plays a fundamental role,” Guido Barilla said. The executive also told the program’s hosts that “if the gays do not agree, they can always eat pasta from another manufacturer,” which prompted a swift boycott from advocacy group Equality Italia.
The world’s largest pasta manufacturer later “apologized,” explaining Mr. Barilla has nothing but “the utmost respect for homosexuals.”
Dig yourself deeper, pasta.
