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Review: Pentel Twist-Erase Click

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pentel-twist-erase-click

When it comes to office supplies, people tend to think “work”. That’s understandable, but just because you’re working with something on the job doesn’t mean that you can’t work with the good stuff.

I’m not writing this review because I’ve been sponsored by Pentel, because I wasn’t. I see it as my way of standing for quality in writing utensils. I know that I’m not the only one who went years writing with those cheap BIC pens that are a couple dollars for a dozen, then later discovered how much more joyful writing can be with a quality rollerball and not want to go back to the cheap BICs.

There is a high-quality mechanical pencil that is affordable, and that’s the Pentel Twist-Erase Click (PTEC, for brevity). I’ve liked mechanical pencils for a long time, and favored them over old-fashioned wood pencils due to the wood pencil’s many unpleasant features:

  • They get dull, necessitating sharpening after just quick bursts of writing,
  • You can get thin wood shavings all over your desk or other writing surface after sharpening,
  • Also, sharpening them is seriously inconvenient.

While those with wood pencils are taking trips to the pencil sharpener, those of us with mechanical pencils can keep writing like champs, keeping the momentum going with pencils that don’t get shorter. That’s even better for the PTEC, because the clicker is on the side of the pen, rather than on the top and housing the eraser, so there’s no need to perform hand gymnastics to keep pumping the graphite and writing efficiently. You can keep the flow of graphite going in the same position as you would be holding the pencil.

Oh yeah, speaking of the eraser, that’s the PTEC’s stand out feature. You know how most mechanical pencils have stubby little erasers that wear down quickly and are difficult to pull out and replace, provided that the pencils even come with replacement erasers? The PTEC comes with long erasers that can be mechanically drawn by the pencil itself. Meaning you can have a mechanical pencil with a convenient eraser that lasts longer than just a few assignments.

And better yet, the eraser isn’t one of those cheap erasers that have dyes that change the color of your paper when you try to erase something. Does anyone actually like those pink erasers? While the eraser that came with my PTEC was already pretty good, Pentel makes a quality high polymer eraser that erases very well that I would have preferred was in the PTEC. So I went and performed a modification to my own PTEC by trimming one of those erasers to shape using a box cutter, so I made some long cylinders that would fit in the PTEC and enjoyed the benefits of having a great mechanical pencil with a great eraser.

Not only is the PTEC a blast to write with, it’s made of some rugged stuff. I purchased it as I was beginning a 2-year college course, and it didn’t break until I was taking the final exam of one of my courses towards the end of the second year, so I finished the test with an inferior pencil. Noticeable difference. I still passed, though. There is more to getting a great grade than having an excellent mechanical pencil, though it doesn’t hurt. I liked my PTEC so much, that I fixed it with Gorilla Glue and kept using it.

There is one minor complaint I can think of, and that’s that the thin button protrudes noticeably towards the bottom. This can make the pencil appear as though it has a mechanical flaw, even though it’s just fine. However, even this turns out to be an advantage, as it allows for an easy tactile indication of the button’s presence when it’s time to draw out more graphite.

If you think that I made a good case that the Pentel Twist Erase Click is a great mechanical pencil, perhaps this will help you out: a link to an online store where you can buy it. Or you can choose another retailer, if you prefer. As of this posting, the listing contains the message “not sold in stores”. It’s upsetting that such a great product is not getting restocked, perhaps because it wasn’t being supported by purchases or because people are simply ignorant of just how good this mechanical pencil is. I know that there are some out there who just go with what’s supplied to them at the office, and resign themselves to either writing with cheapo stationery and whatever pens that their ultimate-cheap company managed to pilfer from a nearby bank. If their company isn’t going to get better office supplies for them, why shouldn’t they at least invest for themselves in making their time in the office at least slightly less miserable?

Score: 9/10

There might be better mechanical pencils on the market, but I think that the Pentel Twist Erase Click is among the best that are still affordable. It may not be perfect. As far as I know, there is no mechanical pencil out there that has a feature that summons a team of scantily-clad ninja women to make you a sandwich. But this mechanical pencil is great for getting the job done, and because it gets so many things right.

Pokemon Sun first impressions… Disappointment!?

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Imagine a game with deep, engaging gameplay mechanics, crisp, colorful graphics (for the system it’s playing on), catchy music, but is marred by what is possibly the most cumbersome story in the history of gaming.

If you’ve played Pokemon Sun or Moon, you don’t have to imagine. You’ve already played it.

I’ve played a bit of Pokemon Sun version. Enough to write up a post about my first impressions of the game. I haven’t read or watched any reviews on the game, so my impressions of the game are not influenced by them at all. After this, I might find it interesting to look at a few of them to see whether I’m the only one who had the kind of experience with this game that I have.

I’m likely to catch some flak for it, but this post is my honest opinion. It’s not as positive or upbeat about the game as the opinions of other players might be, but it’s an honest opinion that addresses what I see as problems with the game. You can look at my other posts tagged Pokemon, so you’ll know that I’m sincere and not someone who is just trolling, here.

For a while, I’ve viewed stories as largely unnecessary in video games, but viewed RPGs as the exception. However, I think it is possible for RPGs to go too far with their stories, and Pokemon Sun demonstrated this to me. RPGs typically start out very story heavy in an effort to establish the premise and provide a pretext for the action that’s to take place for much of the game. That’s normal. However, Pokemon Sun went too far with this.

How do most Pokemon RPGs start? With a young character meeting a professor, receiving his first pokemon, and after a short fetch-quest, he can buy pokeballs and strike out on his own, and the player can play the game at their own pace. In Pokemon Sun, the story is heavier. Much heavier.

The point of Pokemon is the pokemon themselves: catching, battling, and raising them. I started Pokemon Sun eager to do just that, but had my experiences frustrated by loads of lengthy exposition. By the time I finally obtained my first pokemon and experienced the first battle, it felt like it was over too quick. But then it was on to more exposition.

In RPGs, there is an illusion of open-endedness. There’s usually a story that doesn’t advance until you’ve brought your characters to a certain location. I’m okay with this, as long as it doesn’t get too linear. Pokemon Sun is linear. It felt as though I was carting the main character from one location to another just to have the plot advance some more. It got to the point that I was dreading the appearance of Lillie, a character that does a lot to advance the plot early on. To put that in perspective, I didn’t find Navi from Ocarina of Time to be annoying.

One of my personal objectives getting into this game was to get a Raichu in my team, because I liked the new Alolan Raichu’s design. So I was looking for a place to catch a Pichu or Pikachu early on. So I was happy to have battled a guy with a Pichu, because I could use the fact that it was registered in my Pokedex to find its location. Getting Pichu required me to backtrack to a route that I had visited earlier, but Lillie wouldn’t let me wander off. I had piles more exposition to go through before I could finally go back and catch the thing.

My experience with Pokemon Sun was that of carting the main character from one short distance to another with piles of exposition in between. That kind of thing typically wanes off early on in most RPGs, particularly in story-light RPGs like Pokemon. But at four-and-a-half hours in, it doesn’t seem likely that that’s going to change much.

Another point to bring up is that there seems to be a bit of a spiritual theme going on in Pokemon Sun. That comes off as strange, considering that the main themes of Pokemon have been nature, science, technology, exploration, and, of course, friendship. I understand that it’s not the intention of video games to try to determine what everyone believes in. But spiritual themes are more serious than they are often given credit for. I’d have preferred if Pokemon avoided taking on certain themes that may be of religious significance. I don’t say this as an atheist, because I’m not an atheist. There are people who take religion very seriously, and some may see the appearance of spiritual themes in Pokemon as reason to not allow their children to play them. Not long ago, I defended Pokemon from false accusations of witchcraft. When Pokemon goes near spiritual themes, it makes it harder to defend it against such a charge. It might be that many people out there won’t consider this a determining factor for whether to purchase this product, but there is a potential for controversy.

While I haven’t played very far into the game, there is one feature that I might have a problem with. That would be the one where you take pictures, and they are subsequently rated in a manner reminiscent of social media. Yeah, we actually have Pokemon teaching people how to post photos on pages like Facebook. Personally, I don’t see the feature as one that’s necessary to the experience, and I’d prefer for it to not be obligatory to complete the game. However, that the demo could not be completed without taking some pictures might mean that it would be necessary to do the same in the main game to complete the story. Not to be overly negative, but the feature struck me as tacked-on and unnecessary, and was probably put in after spending a while as someone’s pet project.

The main point of Pokemon is the pokemon. The battles, the catching, and otherwise interacting with pokemon. That’s the kind of thing that a person would buy a game called “Pokemon” to do. The piles and piles of exposition isn’t necessary to such experiences, and largely serve as obstacles to the gameplay mechanics that players bought the game for. At this point, it’s looking like a chore to complete Pokemon Sun, and I don’t feel strongly inclined to play the Moon version and repeat the experience.

So, I’m actually disappointed with what I’m seeing from the Sun version so far. Maybe next year, they’ll make remakes of some earlier games that take it far easier on the story. That would be better, considering that I know how to play Pokemon, and I don’t need hours to get reacquainted with the game mechanics or get escorted around some city that was already in the demo. In fact, allowing players to explore a game on their own and find out things about it isn’t a bad thing. It was what made nearly all the rest of the Pokemon games so rewarding.

One more thing. The rewards for playing the demo include a bunch of items that can be sold for piles of cash. The opportunity to start the game with a silver spoon is theoretically a neat incentive to return to the demo. Except you begin the game with more money than in most Pokemon games anyway, and receive a much bigger lump of money from your mom shortly after starting the game, making those items not much of a big, screaming deal.

That’s how I feel about the game so far. I did say that I was going to be honest. I’m getting pretty tired of stories in video games, and this one turned out to be a particularly egregious offender, so I went and unloaded on it. Disagree with me? Comments section.

Vote by text? Is that even a thing?

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Can a person really vote by text? If it’s about voting in the upcoming presidential election, then the answer is no.

But that’s not stopping ads such as the one in the photo above from making rounds on social media outlets such as Twitter. The fake ads were apparently made by conservative Twitter users, who proceeded to share them as legitimate, perhaps so left-wing bloggers can take it at face value and re-tweet it.

Traditional media outlets have discovered that this is going on, and they went ballistic. One example would be this article on The Washington Post.

Twitter typically doesn’t intervene unless what is posted is illegal, and lying about the process of voting is not illegal. However, Twitter eventually intervened anyway, which I think just about anyone could have seen coming. You know, what with leftists making up a huge chunk of their Safety Council.

It’s easy to see why the left-leaning media didn’t like this very much. It’s not just the fact that it’s right-wing shenanigans, which they’d jump all over to try to convince you to change your vote to Democrat. Generally, politicians and the politically-involved tend to see the majority of the population as morons. So when they saw this hoax pop up, they suspected that people could fall for it. Personally, in the case of liberals, I see these concerns as much more well-founded.

I know that the image of the typical left-leaner as presented in the media is as some coastal technocrats that are connected and abreast of the trends of the digital age, while those on the right are portrayed as southern yokels who are too heavily invested in traditional values to come to the present age. However, when you spend some time on the ground, you see that this isn’t really the case. From my own experience, the typical left-leaners are low-income city-dwellers who believe that they are actively being suppressed, and that the odds are against them. They typically vote Democrat because they receive government assistance of some kind, and are convinced that if Republicans got their way, their benefits would be taken away from them, and they would be left to starve. This is in contrast to the typical conservative, who are usually skilled workers who see the world as unfair, but love the free market because it still offers a positive correlation between the effort that one puts forward, and the reward they get for it.

Fake ads like the one shown above, which has also been produced in Spanish, are perfect for pulling one over on the left-leaning. Many of them would see something like voting by text as something that could reasonably be implemented in the year 2016. They might even see the use of material such as the official logo for the Clinton campaign, as well as the disclaimer, and think it’s legit. So they’d fire their text messages off on their cheap pay-as-you-go Obamaphones while thinking that they’re bringing about change (by voting for the establishment candidate, go figure), and Election Day can come and go and they’d be none the wiser.

The fact that a similar ad was produced in Spanish is especially insidious. We know that the reason why immigrants (legal or otherwise) vote Democrat is because Democrats are generally weaker on immigration. We know that the reason why Democrats want illegal immigrants to vote is that illegal immigrants would mostly vote Democrat, and these days, when elections are usually tight, even a slight shift in one party’s favor can win that party the election. That Democrats desire to secure the votes of immigrants doesn’t have to do with sharing their values (because they don’t), they see them as a resource to exploit for political advantage.

The problem is, illegal immigrants don’t understand the American election process very well. This isn’t surprising, considering that Americans don’t understand the election process very well. So when someone new to America sees an official-looking ad say (in their own language) that they can vote for a candidate by text, they are likely to take it at face value, and not bother to register or vote or even show up on election day, and they’d be likely to pass this false information on to their friends and family.

The internet has proven to be a double-edged sword. While it’s true that it can be used to send information instantaneously around the world, the same could happen with false information, and that false information can get quite a bit of traction. It’s tempting to save time by taking someone else’s word for it so one can get back to wasting it with some vapid Facebook game. However, if a person doesn’t do their research, they’re going to be much easier for someone else to take advantage of.

I liked it better when Trump said it.

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When Donald Trump stated his belief that the US presidential election was rigged, it was treated by media outlets and the Democratic party as an unprecedented challenge to democracy itself.

But was Donald Trump the first person to ever challenge the results of a presidential election?

How quickly people forget. The results of the US presidential election has been challenged, and it was actually very recent. In the year 2004, George Bush won reelection. By a landslide. That did not sit well with left-leaners. While John Kerry himself shortly afterwards conceded the election, there were diehards who would not accept an extension of the Bush presidency, including Larry Chin of FromTheWilderness.com and Bob Fitrakis of the ironically-named FreePress.org. If Donald Trump can be called unpatriotic for challenging an election system he believes is rigged, certainly the same could be said of bloggers who were leftists back when leftism was fashionable.

But, the challenge wasn’t issued by John Kerry himself, so it’s not like he was being a poor sport. So then, was there a previous presidential candidate who directly challenged the results of the presidential election?

Yes there was. Does the name “Al Gore” ring a bell?

Yeah, that guy. Not only did he challenge the results of the election in the state of Florida, he brought the issue to the Supreme Court, which then gave the election to Bush. Gore made a spectacle of the American electoral process, which resulted in America being mocked abroad for our difficulties in selecting a leader. At that time, Floridians who claimed that the ballots were confusing sided with Kerry. I’ll let you consider whether you want to count the votes of those who don’t understand how to cast them.

Leftists, I get it. You don’t like admitting that your favorite guys lost to Bush, the guy who’s portrayed as a chimp in political comics and has no apparent knack for public speaking. That’s embarrassing. This might have something to do with the fact that neither one of them became the frontrunners for their party again.

However, when Donald Trump accuses Hillary Clinton and the DNC of cheating, leftists trip over themselves to make him out to be a threat to democracy, not remembering what they themselves once said back when Bush campaigned and won.

Personally, I liked it better when Donald Trump said it. Not that he’s providing much in the way of evidence to back up his claim, nor do I know for sure what kind of information he has access to.

However, Trump did bring something against Clinton that I wouldn’t put past her. She was the one who staged an event where she hugged a child after collapsing at a 9/11 memorial event as though she were okay, then claimed to have been diagnosed with pneumonia just days prior (This is irresponsible, because pneumonia is the single highest infectious cause of death in children worldwide. Saying that she lied wouldn’t be much of a defense.). Hillary Clinton is the one who hired a child actor to feed a scripted anti-Trump question to her at an event.

And, worst of all, after Hillary Clinton was asked to turn over emails as part of an investigation, she then deleted them and proceeded to have her old Blackberrys smashed with hammers. It was bad enough that she used a private email server when she should have known that that was illegal. She couldn’t have claimed ignorance when she deleted the emails that she was ordered to turn over. Isn’t tampering with evidence in an investigation called “obstruction of justice”? At the very least, she knowingly defied a court order. How did she avoid getting arrested?

And, in any case, how was conspiring against Bernie Sanders to deny him the Democratic nomination any less detrimental to the electoral process?

Is there a fast, easy way to tell when someone is lying about a sex assault allegation?

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Sex assault allegations seem to be coming up with increasing frequency in politics. It’s a trend that arguably became more mainstream with allegations against Bill Clinton, it has more recently derailed the campaign of Herman Cain, and Donald Trump currently faces allegations of sexual misconduct.

Even outside of politics, an allegation of sexual misconduct can be what it takes to derail the accused’s life, whether or not the claims are baseless. In a sense, it’s become a kind of go-to cheap shot for someone who wants to bring another person down, and this approach is attractive due to how much damage it does for very little effort.

Due to what’s at stake, it’s important that we know of a solid, consistent method for telling whether a person is lying to the public about allegations of sexual misconduct.

There is a method that is strongly consistent, and the reasoning behind it is solid. It goes as follows:

If an alleged victim of sexual misconduct takes their allegation to information media before taking it to police, there is a very strong chance that they are lying.

The reasoning behind this is as simple as it is compelling. If it were the interest of the accuser to hold a sexual predator accountable for their misconduct, their most practical course of action would be to report the incident to the police, as soon after the incident as possible. The police can then launch an investigation to collect evidence and, in so doing, increase the likelihood of a conviction, which would greatly decrease the likelihood of subsequent sexual assaults.

If it were the interest of the accuser to cause an extraordinary amount of harm to a person’s reputation, their most practical way of going about it would be to bring such allegations to the media, who, in the interest in providing the public with compelling stories, would do most of the work of attacking the reputation of the accused, especially public figures.

If a person were lying about a sex assault claim, it would not be in their interest to report it to the police. Because the police would launch an investigation, claims made would be scrutinized in the interest in reducing the likelihood of a false conviction, the investigation process would search for evidence of a crime that never occurred, and the judicial process would provide ample opportunity for the accused to make a defense. False claims generally don’t hold up under ordinary scrutiny, and would be far worse off under the kind afforded by the criminal justice system. What’s more, the police don’t like being lied to, so the person making a false claim may be prosecuted for falsely reporting a felony.

There are those who would point out that victims of sexual assaults have a difficult time coming forward due to the scrutiny that they would face. The scrutiny of law enforcement is trivial compared to the public attention that they would face, whether or not their claims were sincere. However, by design, a person who lies by taking their claims to social networks or the mainstream media can do the damage they please while avoiding accountability. Due to the “deep pockets” principle, a person is more likely to sue a media outlet for committing libel per se, because the media outlet would have more potential for compensating for damages than some woman who works at JC Penneys, even though the media outlet merely took the woman’s word for it.

On the other hand, when the matter is reported to the police, there is little potential for public attention, and such a claim, if true, could be verified, and the offender can be held accountable. The likelihood for this occurring decreases with time as the victim sits on the incident without reporting it. In fact, the statute of limitations exists to protect citizens from baseless and frivolous claims that allegedly occurred a long time ago, especially considering the tendency of the human mind to recall events with increased inaccuracy as time goes on. Considering this, the sooner a sex assault victim reports the incident to the police, the better.

Based on the simple criteria above, consider on a case-by-case basis where alleged victims of sexual assault are taking their claims, whether their claims are directed against Bill Clinton, Herman Cain, Donald Trump, or anyone else, for that matter. Are they really seeking justice, or are they motivated by something else?

Want to prove that you’re a cool guy? Why not shout at pedestrians?

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A while back, I was walking along a sidewalk, when a car passed by and someone shouted something at me. I don’t know what they said, but when someone does something like that, it’s typically some kind of obscenity.

“Great, another one of those guys.” I thought. You know what I mean, it’s yet another half-wit who only has the confidence to shout some mean words at someone because he’s doing so from the safety of a moving vehicle, with no apparent means of retaliation from the recipient.

Then something interesting happened. As he was shouting, he was approaching a traffic light. And it had just turned red.

So there I was, with the opportunity to approach the vehicle, and ask the passenger what he said. I decided to take it. So I walked up to the car and did just that.

Curiously, the passenger of the vehicle didn’t remember saying anything to me. A case of face-to-face amnesia? Whatever it was he said, none of the vehicles two or three other occupants cared to remind him what it was.

So, what did I do after that? I just walked off. Apparently, something about being in arms reach made them lose their nerve. What they did after that, I don’t care, but they presumably sped off at the first opportunity while high-fiving each other over how they handled that situation.

What’s the point of this story? I don’t know. Maybe that there are three or four cowards living in Maryland somewhere. Also, shouting at people from a moving car seems like a pathetic way to try to prove to your friends how cool you are. And if they’re impressed with something that has no risk involved, then their idea of a good time is probably watching the same Monty Python skit a dozen times. Not that I have anything against Monty Python, but there are people out there that can watch the same routine many times and still laugh. I really don’t know why.

4 Features still missing from the iPhone

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The new iPhone 7 has been revealed and released, and it seems like everyone is throwing a fit over the missing headphone jack.

It seems like this thing can’t be discussed without someone bemoaning the absence of another hole into which dust can get into their device, based on technological elements that have been implemented since 1878.

Personally, I think it’s about time someone took the bold move of phasing out the ancient headphone jack in favor of something like USB, or even a wireless connection like Bluetooth (which has been a thing for a while). Sure, this means that your old headphones might not be compatible with the new iPhone, but don’t act surprised. The cost of the forward movement of technology means that what came before tends toward obsolescence. Remember VHS tapes? We’ve since moved on to DVD. And speaking of, DVD is being phased out in favor of Blu-Ray digital downloads. What’s outdated eventually becomes a casualty of the war of progress.

Apple saw all the whining coming, so they went ahead and made a headphone adapter so you can continue to use your outdated headphones, and they even included it with the phone. As it turns out, the whiners are quite adaptive, because they’ve made their complaints about the theoretical few who like to listen to their music on their phone while their phone is charging. Here’s an idea: if you’re tethering your phone to your PC, why not just listen to music from your PC instead, considering that it’s right there? Or use the aforementioned Bluetooth.

It seems like people have forgotten that the iPhone is famous for missing features, so I’ve made a list of missing iPhone features to jog your memory.

1. Removable battery
Of the cell phones that I own, the iPhone is the only one that doesn’t have a removable battery. As anyone who has owned any cell phone would know, if you can’t swap out a depleted battery for a fresh one, the battery life of your phone becomes a serious issue. A phone can get away with having a pretty bad battery life if you can swap the battery out with replacements that you keep around.

2. SD card compatibility
We’re up to the 7th iteration of iPhone, not counting all the reissues of the same version, and the iPhone still lacks any capacity for storage expansion. Going back to comparing it to my other phones, the iPhone is the only cell phone of the ones I own that lacks a slot for Micro SD cards. Why is that? It’s an industry standard. Even my Nintendo 3DS came with an SD card.

So, what excuse does Apple have for not allowing expansion of storage using SD cards? From what I can tell, Apple would prefer to milk us by encouraging us to spend a lot of money for higher storage iPhones.

3. Smudge-resistant screen
It might be that I have a mild case of OCD, but I really hate the sight of fingerprints on my glossy tech. Especially on the display screens, because that can be really distracting. It’s nice that there are iPhone models that have a matte finish, but what does that do for the screen? What makes this an especially big deal for the iPhone is that the screen is the primary interface, and speaking of…

4. A slide-out keyboard
I’d like to know when it was decided that tactile feedback is obsolete. Here’s a hint: it isn’t. No one likes using a keyboard that doesn’t give a satisfying click with each keystroke, and the same goes for the iPhone’s virtual keyboard.

Those would be the main features that I can think of that would be great on iPhone, some of which are on most other phones. There might be others, but those would be the main ones that could really improve it. Personally, I doubt that Apple would actually implement these features, but if they’re a big enough deal for you, you could just get a different phone, instead.

Should gamers be working so hard to avoid spoilers?

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Have you ever attempted to have a conversation with someone about an upcoming game, and they wanted to avoid spoilers? It’s not fun, because they insist that you dance around certain topics that they might find revealing.

But hold on, the game hasn’t even been released yet. How can there be any spoilers? As it turns out, they don’t mean something like the ending or some plot point, they mean that they want to avoid any information on the game that they possibly can, so that the game will be a total surprise for them when they play it.

So, what they’re saying is that they’re sure that they want to purchase a game, but they don’t know anything about it besides its title. How can that be good for the gaming industry? If you’ve enjoyed the last few games in the Pokemon series, it’s not a bad bet that you’d enjoy the next one. But what incentive would the game makers have to continually improve their product if they are sure that they have your purchase? If game makers think that they can make steady income by virtue of the name of the series itself, that’s all they’d need to get sales. And persons who buy their games without doing research (such as those who attempt to avoid spoilers) only prove this to them.

So, what is someone to do to avoid all information about a game leading up to its release? If it’s a high-profile game like Pokemon, they’re bound to accidentally run into news of the game just by using the internet.

And for what? Some special revelation that could only occur the first time a person plays the game, not knowing what they’re getting into?

Game companies produce trailers for their video games for a reason: to market their products. Of course, they’ll have already won over those who have already made up their minds. But another reason game companies release trailers is because they contain information that they want buyers to have access to. They might be just what it takes to prevent people from being disappointed in their product when it turns out different from their expectations.

A person may be attempting to avoid disappointment by avoiding the hype machine. However, there’s still a potential for disappointment by virtue of the fact that the person has their own expectations, even if they develop those expectations independently of the game maker’s influence. And a person can’t avoid having expectations about a game that they intend to purchase. The very fact that they pre-order or purchase a game is an indication that they have expectations. Or that they’re reckless consumers.

If a person wants to leave themselves out of the conversation, that’s their choice. But avoiding game trailers for fear of spoilers is silly. It’s not like you can’t trust an official source with story-sensitive information about your game. And speaking of, video games are not books or movies. No one plays them for the story, they play for the game mechanics. It’s one of the primary things that sets video games apart from other forms of entertainment media.

I knew that Aeris dies before even playing Final Fantasy VII because many people were talking about it. People were talking about it because it was considered a big deal at the time. Insisting that people don’t talk about it just because you haven’t gotten around to playing the game yet is pretty selfish. Especially when what is discussed is information that has already been disclosed through trailers, which usually contains minimal information about the game to begin with.

MTV and Buzzfeed on being a guy.

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You might want to disable your gag reflex for this one. This involves Buzzfeed. It also involves MTV. And MTV wants to impose their sad ideas of what it means to be a guy on the rest of us.

MTV (more specifically, MTV2) has posted “14 Rules Of (sic) Guy Code That Can Never Be Broken“. That MTV, property of global mass-media corporation Viacom, believes that they are in a position to tell the rest of us how to conduct ourselves as men is, in itself, interesting. But it gets even funnier when you get into the actual content of the article.

Let’s get started.

1. GREET APPROPRIATELY
I. No hug comes without a bro handshake first.
II. No hug comes without a pat on the back after.

The bro hug is the culturally-relevant male greeting of the current half-decade, much in the same way as the fist-bump was in the previous half-decade. And like the fist-bump, the bro hug is mere years from being cycled out, only to occasionally be brought up again by your awkward friends who are a tad behind on things.

Considering the temporary nature of these fad greetings, it’s interesting that MTV is ascribing to it the importance of a rule to never be broken. One might even get the idea that they don’t honestly think that their list will even be relevant in five years, and considers it of no more value than its ability to market a vapid television program.

III. No high fives are given to overeager bros.

Shown in the article is an animated picture of a man attempting to high five a couple people who don’t even notice him. Some rules are self-enforcing.

2. CHOOSE THE RIGHT URINAL
I. No urinal encroachment.

While there is little dispute over this rule, if any, MTV can be criticized for playing it safe for including a nearly universally-known rule. There’s very little point in bringing it up unless there are some specifics to get into, such as whether to take the urinal that is two urinals down from an occupied one, or whether to take the furthest.

II. No short urinals, unless you’re a child or a man-child.

Very short-sighted, MTV. It’s obvious that they’re not thinking to accommodate those who, by reason of substantial length, would require a lower urinal. I’m disappointed, MTV.

III. No loud dick shaking.

I wasn’t aware that this is a serious issue, but apparently, in Viacom’s offices, it is.

3. DON’T LET YOUR GIRL RUN YOUR LIFE
I. No dance classes.

If I suspect that my girlfriend wanted to control my life, The first signs I’d look for would be the ones that are likely to come up sooner. Such as telling me how to put my socks and neckties away. Once it gets to the point of dance classes, the problem is already pretty far advanced.

At this point, I suspect that the author is intentionally setting the bar low, and in so doing, inadvertently revealing something about himself.

II. No reading the same book together as a couples bonding activity.

Wrong. I can think of some books that can be read by couples. Such as the Bible. Also, The Alphabet of Manliness by Maddox.

aom-maddox

III. No sharing her clothes even if they’re “unisex” and you like the “silky feel.”

Are you kidding? Is this really such a universal problem that it has to be included in a list of pointers on how to be a guy? It’s as though the author is seriously ignorant or thinks very little of his audience. Did it occur to him that a guy who would wear women’s clothes wouldn’t care about a guy image? Because it’s quite obvious that that wouldn’t be what he’d be going for.

4. DON’T LET YOUR FRIEND’S GIRL RUN YOUR LIFE

You know what? There are people out there that probably actually could use this list. If there is someone out there that has so little confidence that they’re being whipped by a woman that isn’t even putting out for them, they really could benefit from a list that sets the bar so low. Baby steps.

I suspect that the author of this list is projecting, by the way.

I. No dating your friend’s girl before, during, or after their relationship.

If someone else’s girlfriend is running their life, she is very likely the one that started it. What she hopes to gain from playing her game, I don’t know.

II. No telling your friend’s girl about your friend’s other girl.

Why would anyone do this? It’s obvious that he already made his choice, and should be ready for the consequences when the two inevitably find out about each other.

III. No asking your friend’s girl if she has any “biddies” to set you up with.

There are a lot of reasons why I don’t suspect that most people would actually do this, and they generally have to do with the fact that I think more highly of people than MTV does. But then again, MTV is aiming for a particular audience here.

5. PRANK RESPECTFULLY
I. No broken bones.
II. No hijacking their phones.
III. No resulting loans.

Why not level up and not prank? Most pranks involve acts that are illegal.

6. MANAGE YOUR PORN
I. No using your roommate’s laptop.

In general, it’s not a very good idea to use anyone else’s laptop for most purposes, considering that you don’t know what they’ve been doing with it. Not that I don’t let other people use mine, on the principle that it doesn’t hurt for a gun to have an additional set of prints.

II. No writing “reviews” on the message board.

The word “reviews” is in quotation marks, so I suspect it means pretending to be an art connoisseur. In some cases, this can be pretty funny.

III. No waiting up late for live shows to start.

Your mom wants you to get up early for school tomorrow.

7. EAT LIKE A MAN
I. No cutting your pizza with a fork and knife.

If someone cares whether you do this, they probably don’t make a very good friend. Seriously, who cares?

Also, on a related note, there are those who complain about Americans using chop sticks when eating oriental food, particularly Asian servers. We can make a deal: we can pretend to know how to eat with chopsticks, and in exchange, you can pretend that you’re serving real oriental food.

II. No thinking you’re cute if you get foam on your nose from a cappuccino.

It’s not about whether someone actually gets foam on their nose. No, the problem is whether someone thinks they’re cute for it. How is anyone supposed to enforce this? I have no idea, because I’ve never tried anyone for thought crimes.

III. No asking the waiter to cut your hamburger bun in half.

You don’t have to. Hamburger buns are served sliced in half. They pretty much have to be. Otherwise, it’s pretty hard to get the patty between both halves.

8. DRINK LIKE A MAN
I. No asking for a “brewski.”
II. No colored straws, mini umbrellas, or drinks named after movie characters.

It should be obvious at this point that this isn’t so much a list governing guy conduct as it is a list of a miserable person’s pet peeves.

III. No shouting “shots for everyone!” without buying shots for everyone.

Also, never throw your money on the table. People might think you have a lot of the stuff.

9. DON’T BE WEIRD AT THE GYM

So, someone who has never been to the gym is going to attempt to tell us how to behave at a gym? This is going to be a treat. Let’s see what important issues he’s going to touch upon.

I. No running with “toe shoes.”

Picard-Facepalm

II. No looking at your abs in the gym mirror.

Why would anyone want a visual indication of their progress in the very place that they work toward a goal?

III. No group stretching except for extremely tight circumstances.

If an activity makes the author feel uncomfortable, he doesn’t want you to do it, either.

10. BE A GOOD GROOMSMAN
I. No skipping out on the bachelor party because you have a work thing.

While skipping out on a close friend’s special occasion is usually not a good thing, what I find disturbing here is that the author refers to gainful employment as a “work thing”. Believe it or not, a person’s career is usually very important to them. It’s not just their source of income, it’s how they justify their existence among other people. When someone greets you, it’s not rare of them to ask what you do for a living, and assign you a value based on your answer. Men see other men based on what they do with their lives. Because of this, people usually make sacrifices to their hobbies to further their career. Even if it means playing video games for a few fewer hours a day.

II. No making a long speech about how lonely you are.

I suspect that the author identifies with the temptation to do so.

III. No catching the garter.

Understanding this peeve requires understanding the superstition that the man who catches the garter is the next man to marry. The joke is that marriage is avoided by men because if they’re not married, they can keep right on sleeping around. Being married doesn’t prevent a man from doing that. The fidelity is implied. But if a man doesn’t intend to be faithful to any woman, you probably shouldn’t trust him for advice on how to be a better man.

11. KNOW HOW TO TAKE ALL-BRO PICS

MTV wants every guy to be a photographer. Why? I don’t know. Look, some people are better than other people at certain things. It’s why the concept of “pros” exists. If there’s an expert photographer in the group, you have them take the picture, not just any guy in the group.

I. No demanding that everyone look serious and tough.

Why not? It might make a funny picture.

II. No touching if no one else is touching.

Again, if the author feels uncomfortable with something, he doesn’t want anyone else doing it.

III. No forgetting your beach shirt.

MTV wants you to include a Hawaiian shirt in your EDC.

12. REGULATE FLATULENCE

Now those left-wingers want to regulate farting. Them liberals and their regulation of everything is going too far!

I. No denying it.

Unless you didn’t actually do it, right? Fart transparency isn’t some huge issue that I’m aware of. So, who cares? Considering that it’s a natural process with very little if anything in terms of consequences, why should anyone care who does it?

II. No forcing it.

This proves it. MTV is made up of fart hippies who only want their farts to be all-natural. Next thing you know, they’ll be demanding organic farts and gluten free farts. And don’t get me started on vegetarian farts. Those are nasty.

III. No talking about it like it’s art.

For some people, farting is art. Skilled farters exist, just as we have skilled belchers.

13. NO DICK SELFIES
I. No dick selfies for your girlfriend.

The one who would primarily be interested? I thought this was a list for guys. Now you’re trying to tell our girlfriends what they should be interested in?

II. No dick selfies for yourself.

If a person takes a dick-pic for himself, his consent is implied. Just who is he going to upset?

III. No dick selfies for your political future.

As it turns out, MTV is not too left-wing for an Anthony Wiener joke. Though, to be fair, that’s one bandwagon that’s hard to stay off of. Think about the level of impairment it would take to mistake an MMS message for social media. What a world-class blunder.

14. MAINTAIN YOUR BROMANCE

I was a little concerned that someone who would write up a list telling us not to stretch with assistance would be too sexually insecure to give us a few pointers on bromance. Let’s see what wisdom he has to impart.

I. No driving separately to the game.

What game would this be? If this guy is going to give us pointers on how to fart, one would assume that he’d make more than an implication that every man is interested in sports, which isn’t really true, anyway.

II. No being too busy for Mario Kart.

Again, sometimes, people make sacrifices to their hobbies for their careers. A person’s career is important. After all, a person needs money to pay the bills, and to have hobbies like Mario Kart to begin with.

III. No reservations about personal space.

Unless you’re having your picture taken. Or stretching.

THE AFOREMENTIONED ARE OFFICIAL TERMS OF GUY CODE, TO BE UPHELD IN GUY COURT.

If you’ve never heard of Guy Court, it’s a program on MTV2. Viacom saw the potential for marketing through social media, and decided to throw a list on how to be a guy onto a social media outlet, even if it happened to be Buzzfeed, which is populated largely by teenagers who think that they have the world figured out. Even if they didn’t know how.

By the way, Guy Court was cancelled after only 12 episodes in less than 2 months. It seems people don’t want to take advice on how to be manly from MTV. Not that MTV’s audience would be ideal for marketing such a message.

All things considered, this list of guy code rules is pretty pathetic. How about it? Should I make a list of rules on how to be manly? Not that I’d expect everyone to follow it or even take it seriously, but I think I can write something up that would be far more entertaining than Viacom’s sad attempt to market their programming.

Justice served: woman who falsely reported rape jailed

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rachel soderblom

Usually, when we hear a story about a woman falsely accusing a man of rape, we hear about how the allegation tears down every aspect of the man’s life while the woman doesn’t have to face any kind of consequence. The story I’m sharing with you today has a refreshing change of pace.

I’ll preface my next statement with the following: If you’ve actually been raped, report it to the police. That’s the best shot at getting the rapist convicted so he won’t do it again. Don’t wait, just do it, and cooperate with the investigation. You’d be helping society in doing so.

As any SJW or regressive leftist can tell you, if you decide to falsely accuse someone of rape, the last thing you want to do is report it to the police. If attacking someone’s reputation with a false allegation is not beneath you, the most practical way to go about it is to take it to social media. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, pick your social media outlet. However, actually taking it to the police could backfire.

Thirty-four year old Rachel Soderblom of Jackson, Michigan found this out the hard way after falsely reporting to the police that she had been raped. The police used DNA identification to implicate a man who did have sexual relations with her. After the man was arrested, he told his lawyer what had happened, and soon afterwards, police determined that the woman’s story didn’t line up with her friend’s claims that they set her up with him.

For those of you who don’t know the justice system very well, there is a process of questioning and collecting evidence to evaluate the veracity of an accusation. This is what is referred to as an “investigation”. As in, no, don’t count on the police to take everything you say at face value.

Rachel claimed that she was raped at random in a parking lot, when in fact her friends hooked her up with the man, and the two had arranged their sexual encounter with the man making claims that he could “make her go straight”. Rachel eventually fessed up, saying that she invented the claim that she was raped to hide the fact that she cheated on her lesbian partner, and that she did not intend for there to be an arrest.

As a result, Rachel Soderblom was convicted for falsely reporting a felony. She faces 100 days of jail time, followed by two-and-a-half years of probation. She has also been ordered to pay $1483 in fines and legal fees.

Matters like this don’t typically conclude this nicely, and it is great to see a story like this come up to discourage those who are considering the same thing. After all, the criminal justice system is intended for, you know, criminal justice, and is not intended for stupid BS.

One problem I had with this matter is that Soderblom got off way too easy. One hundred days in jail is way to short of a sentence for this kind of thing. As I see it, she should have gotten the very same sentence that she intended for her victim. At least there is a punishment for clogging up the system with BS claims instead of real cases.