Dog Versions of Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) -Humor/Comic

Gordon Michael Woolvett nominated for BLOGOLICIOUS AWARD!

Gordon Michael Woolvett nominated for BLOGOLICIOUS AWARD!

(NOTE: This article is a spoof, but the Award...slightly altered...is now REAL. And yes, Gordon won it. To read about the Actual Aha! Blogolicious! Media Awards, go to this story link. Cheers! CG)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
By Ima Spoofer
Hollyweird, CA. Gordon Michael Woolvett, actor, writer and director was nominated recently for the 2006th Blogolicious MediaMaker Award. Mr. Woolvett was nominated in the Lifetime Achievement category since that is the only category currently still funded by the Academy of Blogolicious MediaMaker Working Group. Other categories in the past included: Best Cross-Dressing Dictator, Most Musical Carpet Cleaner and Least Felonious Child Star. Since all past categories ended in fistfights between the nominees and the nominating committee, no awards were ever actually awarded but most charges were eventually dropped.

Mr. Woolvett is best known for his starring role as Seamus Harper in the Television Series Gene Roddenberry's: Andromeda. However, his work in Elvis Meets Nixon, Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion, Deepwater Black, The Highwayman, Mysterious Island, My Date With the President's Daughter, Sliders, Gator Face and Princes In Exile brought him to the attention of the nominating committee. His excellent work as a screenwriter, proving himself as blessed in talent in two areas and therefore a danger to society and Hollywood filmmaking, was not held against him--much.

His work as a director/writer in Fracture was highly praised as a brilliant opening to a promising directing career. Subsequently, those committee members voting for him solely because of his directing debut were removed because they had not actually seen the film yet and were deemed unduly influenced by a group of leprechauns masquerading as a circus troupe calling themselves, the World's Smallest Giants. Subsequently again, they and the committee members were admitted to the Betty Ford clinic and are now busy selling the movie rights to their story.

Those not having seen Fracture are encouraged to do so and may contact Mr. Woolvett at his website http://woolvettmail.netfirms.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi/YaBB.cgi or http://www.gmwoolvett.com/ in order to find out how to purchase and see the film. The remaining members of the committee have promised to actually see the film, rather than just praise it, in the near future as well.

According to the head of the nominating committee, Mr. Woolvett's nude scene in Rude was the defining moment of the film and clinched his winning of the coveted nomination.

The winner of the 2006th Blogolicious MediaMaker Award for Lifetime Achievement will be announced as usual, after all the contestants are deceased and a reasonable assessment can be made of their life's work. Contestants committing suicide, self-sacrificial or otherwise, are automatically disqualified for cheating. Murdered contestants are re-evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Contestants are not allowed to murder each other in order to increase their chances of winning and will be severely scolded.

Aha! Blogolicious! wishes to congratulated Mr. Woolvett on his nomination and wishes him the best in his future as an up and coming MediaMaker.


This is a satirical spoof, meaning, don't take it seriously.

CG Anderson is a 10 year market researcher and web strategist involved in technology, science and the online world. Also a writer, blogger and novelist. CG's comments are personal and opinionated and solely the responsibility of the author, so there. Don't like the opinions, disagree, agree, don't know? Great, make a comment—clean ones will be allowed, netiquette-challenged ones will be ignored!
Blog sites: http://ahablogolicious.blogspot.com/
URL: http://home.myuw.net/cganders/

New Halo release announced today from Bungie/Microsoft—free cloning to first 500!

Halo 26 release announced today—free cloning to first 500!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
By Bi G. Gotchya
Redmondo Land, WA. AHA! BLOGOLICIOUS! has learned that Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, has announced a new version of its massively popular video game HALO. HALO 26 will be released, according to Microsoft and Bungie, its internal game division that used to be a separate company, early in the year 2026.

As to why the video game and software giant, which recently lost its favored title of Evil Empire to rival search giant, Google, is choosing to announce such a long-lead time for its product, it is simple, says Program Manager E.Z. Gameman.

"We know our customers and we know that they are tired of us announcing products then pushing back the release date at the last minute," says Mr. Gameman. "We also know that gamers are always anxious to see previews of the next rev of a popular game, like Halo. So even though Halo 2 has just been released and Halo 3 is still just a few demo shots, we thought we'd go ahead and let our loyal customers know about what's in store for them in Halo 26 and start building the buzz now."

Gameman promises that the action will be greater in Halo 26, the graphics more realistic, including full body-suit VR immersion and completely neural networked game play across the Internet. (Psychological or physical damages are the responsibility of the user.) As for the story, it will be essentially unchanged. The soldiers never do manage to get off the damn planet or find the final evil alien conqueror, as per gaming requirements in all FPS adventures. (First Person Shooter.)

However, for those first lucky few that decide to pre-purchase the game now in order to be the first to receive it, Microsoft has signed a co-marketing deal with Genetics-R-Us, a leading gene therapy company in the Seattle area. The first five hundred pre-purchasers of Halo 26 will also get a complementary cloned body part of their choice. (Shipping, legal fees and leakage insurance not included.)

However, Microsoft expects pre-sales to be brisk, so hopeful gamers should purchase now. In order to qualify for the free cloned body part, all purchases must be made before June 2007. Sorry, no upgrades allowed.

This is a satirical spoof, meaning, don't take it seriously.

CG Anderson is a 10 year market researcher and web strategist involved in technology, science and the online world. Also a writer, blogger and novelist. CG's comments are personal and opinionated and solely the responsibility of the author, so there. Don't like the opinions, disagree, agree, don't know? Great, make a comment—clean ones will be allowed, netiquette-challenged ones will be ignored!
Blog sites: http://ahablogolicious.blogspot.com/
URL: http://home.myuw.net/cganders/

Commentary--Canadian Bashing and American Bashing Don't Prevent Terrorism

I've been reading a number of articles and blogs that talk about why terrorism is now apparently rampant in Canada--and why it seems like such a shock to Canadians. Some blame Canada's tolerant immigration and political policies. Others blame their anti-American rhetoric as fomenting homegrown efforts (by in a sense, encouraging violence against Americans.)

Apparently anti-Americanism in Canada is often blamed as one reason why the government there might not try to aggressively stop potential terrorists--but why, then they ask, would terrorists turn around and bite the hand that feeds them?

I disagree completely.

I don't think either reason is that valid, but both are of concern to me, since it implies that Canadians are too tolerant and too anti-American. How can they be both?

I think it's very sad if it's fashionable once more to hate Americans, especially speaking as an American. It's as bad as thinking stereotypes of Canadians are valid. It's as bad as thinking that a tolerant society deserves to be victimized...or thinking that a tolerant society can redefine what tolerance is--who gets to be tolerated, who gets to be heard, who gets to be villianized and stereotyped.

I think it's a valid point that Canadians need to define themselves or redefine themselves. I know they often think they are influenced by American views and politics and they are--hell, the world is. But that doesn't mean it doesn't work the opposite. Americans, despite stereotypes and gov't heads, are very influenced by outside America events and views. The only problem is often getting those views on the agenda.

If Canada is doing the same, quashing some media it doesn't agree with while allowing others that fit the personal agenda of its government, then Canadians, if they truly want to be themselves, and be owners of their own thoughts, need to protest.

You need all the views available, including the ones you don't agree with, in order to obtain a fuller understanding of the real world.

I know America often sees itself as the designated policeman of the world--and it well may be, since it is (currently) the most powerful and one of the wealthiest (and certainly the very militarized) -- but policemen are not dictators, nor should they be allowed to think they can be. It's up to the citizens to remind and check the policeman and keep things in balance so that abuses don't happen.

Canada is often seen as a mediator and historically that has many reasons. But whyever the choice was made, it was a good one, since Canada has always found itself stuck between superpowers, weapons loaded, but with an understanding of the culture and history of both sides.

Even mediators find themselves targets of those who simply want to disrupt...or those who want power over someone else. Terrorists are always people that can't stand tolerance and use political events as an excuse to cause violence.

Revolutionaries, those who truly believe in change, often know that violence is the least effective means--ask Gandhi or Martin Luther King.

You can't appease terrorists. They'll just change the rules on you if you give in, to try to get you to give in again and again...it's not even the giving in they want, it's the power. They want to hurt others and will keep pushing until they do...and always with an excuse for their behavior.
Perhaps it's not that Canadians have become too politically correct, but that they've stopped being so...they've started to lean toward intolerance and closemindedness. Anti-American bashing acceptance may be a red flag.

I don't judge any people by their governments...governments change over time and aren't ever representative of the minority or even the majority. They often are the foci of a few individuals following their own agenda while trying to convince their country that it's for their own good.
But how a country does things over time, what it allows and disallows, what art it creates, what jokes it tells, tells me a lot about it's culture and thoughts as a people.

In that sense, American hating and bashing, concerns me greatly. I hope it concerns Canadians, too.

CG Anderson is a 10 year market researcher and web strategist involved in technology, science and the online world. Also a writer, blogger and novelist CG's comments are personal and opinionated and solely the responsibility of the author, so there. Don't like the opinions, disagree, agree, don't know? Great, make a comment—clean ones will be allowed, netiquette-challenged ones will be ignored!
Blog sites: http://ahablogolicious.blogspot.com/
URL: http://home.myuw.net/cganders/

Commentary--why don't I follow the blog flow? short posts and cool designs

Why don't I customize my site? And why do I write such long posts?

Yes, AHA BLOGOLICIOUS, is a fairly new blog. My old blog was more a mishmash of learning experiences. So if I want to join the blogorati, why don't I customize my site into something unique and cool, rather than stick with the current template.

Good question…well, for one, it's a new blog and second, I'm not sure that I want to change it. I rather like the template and current presentation. Too many blogs I see that have all the cool new widgets look more like websites to me and not blogs…the blog part seems lost in the overwhelming often advertising heavy, portal like website format. So for now at least, I'll stay with the simple and direct.

If you want complicated javascripts, CSS, frames, Photoshop designed graphics, Excel and SPSS graphs and everything else except Flash, including a symbolic beating heart—all working best with active content and a fast bandwidth modem, then check out my website. Yes, I did it all myself…though I did borrow (with permission and acknowledgements in the code) javascripts and modify them to suit my own purposes.

And this is the toned down version…the academic stuff I did over the years was way cooler and a lot more provocative. (Social Identity, Racial Tensions, Media Law, CyberLaw, Porn, Women as Objects, Rape, Child Porn, Online Identity…lots of stuff that probably disappointed quite a few people who might have typed in 'porn' or shudder 'child porn' and gotten my site on data, effects and commentary about predators rather than what they were really looking for…) But that site is down now and just the skeletal remnants can be seen in the new official face of me. (sigh)

As to why I write long posts more often than not…well, let's just say I don't like being told that this is the way you do a blog, and this is not…the whole point of blogs is that they are variable, personal and evolving. I happen to write long a lot, because that reflects (quite honestly) the way I talk as well. (So at least I'm following the other blog rule about being yourself and being honest!!)

There will be the occasional short post, probably more as time goes on, but rest assured, I won't be talking about how my dog peed on the carpet or my hair got messed up in the rain. In fact, one of my dogs is very old and dying right now, so yes, she is peeing everywhere…but she deserves a comfortable place to sleep, drink water and eat, so I just get out the neutralizer and the shampooer and wash her blankets as part of the price of such a loving, albeit Alzheimer-affected companion.

And yes, there was a deluge of rain today and it did mess up my hair and soak the rest of me as well…more about that in an upcoming post called "A tale of two restaurants" coming in the next day or so.

So hug your pet, dry your hair and don't worry so much about whether you're meeting others expectations about what is COOL and what is NOT. I don't.

Cheers and have a good weekend.

CG Anderson is a 10 year market researcher and web strategist involved in technology, science and the online world. Also a writer, blogger and novelist. CG's comments are personal and opinionated and solely the responsibility of the author, so there. Don't like the opinions, disagree, agree, don't know? Great, make a comment—clean ones will be allowed, netiquette-challenged ones will be ignored!
Blog sites: http://ahablogolicious.blogspot.com/
URL: http://home.myuw.net/cganders/

Commentary--Virtual Rape -- Marketing versus Digirati

Thank Goodness for Marketing and Flat Out Commercialism…I don't want to be Virtually Raped!

It's not BLOGOLICIOUS, folks, but perhaps it's true. The Digirati might disagree but running headlong into a cyberspace kind of world that forgets about the real world (VR over RL) is actually elitist, insensitive and just plain stupid.

It's been over ten years since Mark Slouka wrote his book on the assault of cyberspace called War of the Worlds and luckily the evangelistic, practically fanatical predictions of release from the bounds of reality and our worldly flesh into a world without boundaries, morals, physicality, ethics hasn't happened—a world where you can rape and pillage without pesky resistance or penalties, where you can create and abuse and even kill slaves without consequences, where you can have cybersex and prostitution without censure or fear of STD's, where you can be anything, anyone, any object you want and do whatever you want without having to worry about the ramifications to either yourself or others just basically be as selfish and egotistical and godlike as you wish.

In other words, a place where you don't have to think about others, about world events or even the welfare of your pet or children or spouse. You can ignore hunger and talk blithely about how virtual rape is just as bad as the real thing, as traumatic—where a real physically raped victim might disagree—but then again, you can ignore the RL protests to your own view of the world and how to solve the world's problems. You can just be academically deconstructionist and claim that Reality is not Real, we are just creating a Consensus that is temporary and fleeting.

That unreal consensus sure feels real to those who are starving, or dying, or being beaten, abused, raped, robbed and killed. Maybe the folks in Washington, D.C. have bought into the whole deconstructionalist VR worldview—would explain a lot of their policies and good humanitarian deeds—or lack of them. For them, like such VR pundits, it's the words that matter not the deeds, it's the flash or the image, not the substance that people really care about. Given the apathetic, religious right, power-seeking follow-my-views-or-starve attitude of the US at times (including now) maybe they are right. I don't like the religious fanaticism and me-as-god-over-you-ism I see in both groups.

Maybe cyberspace did win…in fact, maybe Reality isn't Real has been with us all along. Don't like tackling real world, tough not easy to solve, non-soundbite issues that include treating other people, animals and the environment with more than an elitist, I can do what I want since I'm more powerful regard? Ok, ignore the problem—that's what DC and cyberpundits tell us to do—go bury ourselves in violent video games that offer cheap thrills and realistic horrific violence. Why connect decapitations common in video games with real-life mimicry happening to real-life (and now real-dead after real-painful screaming caused by real-physical saw used by real-physical-completely-disconnected-from-others-rights terrorist)? There couldn't possibly be a connection, could there? Nah!!

But at least marketing and business are as usual and perhaps that's a good thing. With all the spam, banner ads, search word bartering, brand management and viral campaigns running around cyberspace and jumping out at us from all cyberports, most of us realize that the RL is better than the VR…for one, we can still recognize familiar signposts in both (marketing, PR and advertising remain remarkably the same) that both point us ultimately back out to the RL to see the results of our purchase and second, if we really want to escape, a good book or music CD still allows us to escape for awhile, but without the contextual ads or the intrusive, interactive virtual rape from other cybercriminals.

So I don't want to pretend I'm the opposite sex, or a turnip or a table leg, nor do I want to deal with the apparent schizophrenia inducing mindwarps of such MOOs and MUDs. I worry about our sanity and our ethics in every new medium and our (human race's) apparent eagerness to allow & bring out our dark sides at every new opportunity. It scares me when I read that something like over 70% of young college men say they would commit rape (real rape, not even Virtual Rape) if they thought they could do it without reaping any consequences. We need to remember to keep consequences on the Net as well, I think. We need to remember that we should not be worshiping a Machine or even a Medium…nor should we think that life without checks and balances is going to automatically bring a utopia.

Lessons from cyberspace over the last 20 years should have taught us something—life in general should have taught us the same, even without cyberspace thrown in as the new cure-all. Deconstructinalism doesn't automatically bring truth or insight. It's a technique to help weed out the wheat from the chaff and should be remembered as such. Ignoring reality doesn't make it go away—unless you want to spend your life in an asylum, in which case go ahead—better you be removed from the rest of us trying to help create a better reality.

Keep searching for insights but keep your perspective as well—remember why every society instituted checks and balances. Examine your own motives and look to history (as many perspectives that have factual data to support them as possible, but keep an open mind) but remember to not always look to bolster your own arguments. Are you doing it because you want to justify your actions, your inner prejudices, your inner dark side dreams? Yes, the Jewish Holocaust happened. Yes, AIDs is blood borne and caused by HIV. Yes, men landed on the moon. (All of these have been debated in the past, often by those who wanted to deny history, rather than because of true inquiry and doubt.) Facts (overwhelming facts, in fact for those who bother to really study them) prove it.

But it doesn't mean you shouldn't keep pressing for answers, especially if you sense that maybe there is more to be found. Yes, North American European-stock settlers were massacred by Native/First Peoples but also yes, Native/First Peoples were massacred by NA European-stock settlers. A book called Lies My Teacher Told Me is a great place to start when trying to honestly look at how history can be misconstrued depending on those in charge of keeping it. Political policy is usually worth intense scrutiny, so is economic policy and environmental policy.

In fact, too often these things are ignored because they are complicated and don't fit the 10-second dumbed-down entertaining soundbite expected and served on our daily news feeds. Gossip about the sex life of a religious figure from 2000 years ago is much more interesting, if impossible to prove one way or another since even the writers of the Bible weren't firsthand witnesses (in the bedroom or outside of it) but came over a hundred years later and beyond and even then heavily rewrote and edited according the historical political agenda that THEY had—thank you Da Vinci Code even though no one seems to get the irony of the arguments, themselves. Tragic.

So…I'll take RL, advertising and marketing over cyberistic deconstructionalist escapist avoidant elitism any day. At least commerce doesn't try to be something it's not, or try to enslave me, get me to worship it (with a few exceptions) or virtually abuse me.

But I’m still not paying for search words…

CG Anderson is a 10 year market researcher and web strategist involved in technology, science and the online world. Also a writer, blogger and novelist. CG's comments are personal and opinionated and solely the responsibility of the author, so there. Don't like the opinions, disagree, agree, don't know? Great, make a comment—clean ones will be allowed, netiquette-challenged ones will be ignored!
Blog sites: http://ahablogolicious.blogspot.com/
URL: http://home.myuw.net/cganders/