jennegatron

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Posts posted by jennegatron

  1. Posted

    Yeah, I think the most compelling argument for the decriminalization of marijuana for me personally is the prison population one.  Maybe with that tax revenue they would be able to provide support to those exiting the prison system and attempting to reintegrate into the population. Ha ha ha, they would never do that. Prisons make too much money off of keeping people in prison, and getting people back in once they've been released.

    (When I think about how hard it must be to live life in the United States as a Black person with a felony record, it pretty much makes me cry.)

     

    The fact that our justice system over-incarcerates people of color, specifically Black People (Black Men in particular) make me inclined to advocate for the release of non-violent offenders especially those with possession without intention of distribution charges against them.

  4. Posted

    Has anyone a suggestion for a good comedy podcast?

     

    I tried Regular Features and had to stop transporting myself from one place to another because it was too hilarious. But since listening to my first few episodes, I've found the humor to be a little too gutter for my tastes.

     

    I'm looking for comedy that can make me laugh uncontrollably without making me feel used?

     

     

    My Brother My Brother and Me (or MBMBAM) is great. I can't listen to that at work or on the train for the same reason. 

     

    They've also started a D&D Campaign called The Adventure Zone, found at www.theadventure.zone with their dad which is pretty good. 

     

    I had the same recommendation for MBMBaM.

    Here is their sampler. It might give you an idea of what to expect: http://maximumfun.org/2011/05/10/mbmbam-sampler

    Judge John Hodgman is pretty reliably funny.

    I second the Adventure Zone recommendation as well.

  5. Posted

     

    oddly it does.  but when i pulled the zip-code off one of you's entries it moved the pin a few miles into town...Thanks Bing

     

     

    So bizarre.  I'm in Davis proper, but that zip code put us both outside, so now it looks like I live in farm fields. That's okay. At least I know someone else is in Davis with me.

  13. Posted

    I don't play Dota 2 but my boyfriend loves it so very much, and is always watching tournaments, so I was exposed to a lot of the Summit 2. Mostly I just heckled about Aui 2000 being my favorite because of his hand embroidered "AUI 2COZY" Snuggie that his girlfriend made him.


    I listen to a lot of podcasts, (I have long commute times and was hoping to get some Aui commentary in this ep) and thought the mix was totally inoffensive. A ton of the podcasts I listen to use skype rather than than local recording and this one only had a slight skype sound to it. I think a new format with a regular/semi regular release schedule is pretty desirable. Keep it up Sean.

  14. Posted

    The McElroy brothers (from My Brother My Brother and Me) and their dad have started a D&D campaign podcast called the Adventure Zone. Episode 2 came out yesterday. I think it's really funny and worth checking out. www.maximumfun.org/shows/adventure-zone

  15. Posted

     

    I just saw this week that his leukemia is in remission, and that he's planning to return to work by February, easily in time to cover the NCAA tournament. This makes me really happy.

     

    YAY YAY YAY! That is fantastic news, thank you for sharing! 

    http://craigsagerssuits.tumblr.com/

    For anyone else who wants to peruse the sartorial expertise of Mr. Craig Sager.

     

    (My favorite television show is Inside the NBA, so this is fantastic news.) 

     

    I thought the conversation between Chris & Sean was really interesting regarding Far Cry 4 & the responsibilities of representation. I like that y'all are willing to talk through your impressions & ideas, even if they're not yet fully formed.

  18. Posted

    I find a ton of what's been said her super interesting. I think a lot of this circles back on what Sean was talking about a couple weeks ago about feeling like being isolated from the marketing machine in a way that keeps things that may (or may not) be interesting to you off your radar.

     

    I know that I like to keep up with popular culture, because I spend a great deal of time on twitter, and if I want the context necessary to do so, I need to at least be willing to know what the conversations I'm seeing are referencing, but I can see why it may be energy not worth spending to others.

     

    I was talking about the whole Taylor Swift maturation process with my SO yesterday, and he was saying that he was surprised by everyone else's surprise of her image continuing down the wholesome good girl path into her adulthood.  He isn't a country music fan, but growing up in Oklahoma forces you to be familiar with it. This is the same thing that Nashville country does to all of their pretty white teen girls & women, so for Taylor Swift to be a product of that environment meant it seemed natural to him that she would continue using that image going forward. And when I thought about it for a second, every solo female Nashville country singer I could think of was cast as the same wholesome woman no matter their age.  I don't watch the CMAs or listen to country radio, but the image I have of Faith Hill is largely identical to what I would have had of Taylor when she was 14 and in a more "pure" country stage of her career, which is largely identical to what I think about Carrie Underwood.  She may have made the (symbolic & physical) move to New York, but I doubt she shed her Nashville connections in terms of her publicist(s) & her straight up savvy of know what kind of person she wants to be seen as.  You only have so much control as a famous person over what people say about you, but it would make sense for her to see other country acts grow up using this tactic, and be inclined to also do so.

  19. Posted

    You make a really great point. I too went through an anti-pop star phase in my teens that is embarrassing to think about. It's created a lot of doubt in how I react to this music now, where I never feel fully confident that I dislike pop music because it's just not to my taste or if it's because of the waning influence of my shitty teen years. I tend to avoid pop music all together so I don't have to deal with that conflict. I hate that the cultural nonsense that young women feel they need to go through in order to justify their likes or dislikes.

     

    The marketing around Taylor Swift still makes me uncomfortable, but I really hope my discomfort has more to do with the confusing expectations we put on young women and less to do with artificial gatekeeping and attempting to retain this nonexistent I'm A Cool Girl image.

     

    (Confession: I really enjoy the We are Never, Ever Getting Back Together song)

     

    Oh I totally understand. I don't like a good portion of her music, simply because the more country influenced stuff doesn't appeal to me. I think it's a lack of familiarity with the genre making it impossible to accurately judge what is being done by that section of her catalog.

     

    I think the marketing of her to be un-itimidating yet cool and hip is often times really gross, so I totally get that discomfort. I'm really interested in her transitioning from a teen star to an adult, and that so far she isn't using the appropriation of black culture (in her music) to do so, and also not going the X-tina route. (I agree with the poster above that the scene of her crawling through the tunnel of twerking Black Women made me supremely uncomfortable. I wish that they hadn't done that. I think that every white artist should be banned from including twerking Black Women in their music videos.) Not that there's anything wrong with Christina doing the whole X-Tina thing to shed her Mickey Mouse Club heritage if that's what she wanted, but I like that not everyone is forced down that avenue to remain relevant as an adult. Katy Perry did a weird thing of kind of doing both with California Gurls? She shot whipped cream out of her bra, but also used Snoop Dogg in a gummy bear suit to give herself some sort of weird street cred? It's totally bizarre. I guess Miley did that too now that I think about.

     

    I think T-Swift is a really delightful because she does have a handful of really really catchy fun pop songs that are designed to never leave your head. It took me a long time to come around to liking pop music, so I completely understand that conflict you're feeling. I often times hit that to this day, especially with acts that came out during my teen years, like the Jonas Brothers.  I still have this weird scorn for them as a byproduct of those years, even though I have no reason to still feel that way.

  20. Posted

    As someone who spent my teen years consuming media that made me feel like I was subverting (White) culture's expectations of me as a girl (like the hard rock music my parents listened to or the moody pop-punk I listened to on my own, which I realize now was equally trying to market itself to me, and I was playing into exactly the image they wanted to build) and casting scorn on the things that I saw were marketed to girls (pop sung by young women, or  the pretty boy boy bands), because everyone should understand that I'm cool and just like one of the guys, it's hard for me to view criticisms of things like Taylor Swift (and other popular acts targeted at girls like One Direction) as anything other than the scorn I felt toward them at 15.  I had so much internalized misogyny and self-loathing for being a girl that it casts all of the criticism I hear through that lens, and it can be really hard to divorce myself of that to be able to hear it as anything else.

     

    So much of it reads as either gatekeeping (this isn't REAL music by REAL musicians, because she has co-writers) or "things that teen girls like are dumb, because teen girls are dumb."

     

    I know that pretty much everything said in this thread isn't meant to say either of those things, but I DO think that that lays at the heart of a lot of criticism of her.

    I think there are valid criticisms of her, as well as most pop artists, especially white pop artists who co-opt Black culture to transform their image (Lookin' at you Miley & Justin Timberlake) or to create a persona marketable to the masses (Vanilla Ice & Iggy Azaela)

    I think 1989 is a really good pop album, and that there is nothing wrong with performing pop music, whether you are sole creator, or just the voice singing the song on the local top 40 radio station.

     

    On a completely different note, I was fascinated by the old men & old woman living in a weird parallel world that is super distanced from Pokemon.  I constantly think that I'm about the same age as everyone on the show, but in reality I'm 7-10 year younger than everyone on the cast. Pokemon was such a huge part of my life from the time I started watching the tv show on our local Fox affiliate in the mornings before school, then getting a gameboy pocket & a copy of Red for Christmas when I was 7 (second grade.)  I encounter this actually all the time from my SO who is 3 1/2 years older than me. I will reference things from my childhood, and he won't have any idea what I'm talking about, and I am reminded that 3 1/2 years when you're 6 & 9 is HUGE, so yeah, he's not going to get my Blue's Clues reference, unless I make enough times that he's learned it from me, and he can sing the mail song by himself.

  23. Posted

    I really really loved this episode.  My bf was really into Binding of Isaac, so I'm interested to see if h sinks another 200 hours into Rebirth.

     

    My personal highlights of this episode were def Sean's Wyoming stories. They were just so perfect.

     

    I cannot contain my excitement for Hatoful Boyfriend coverage next week.

    I don't know how many people watched/are aware of the Metadating show (and the following Mostly Walking show) but that is where I was introduced to Hatoful Boyfriend, and by extension re-introduced to the visual novel/dating sim genre.

    Here's that episode of Metadating:

     

    This was episode one of Metadating, and none of them knew VN/dating sims well enough to identify all the tropes that are made fun of in Hatoful Boyfriend, but is still very enjoyable. If you're really interested in exploring the various pigeon paths, you might want to wait on the metadating ep because I think they spoil the storyline with the school's pigeon doctor.

  24. Posted

    I was able to piece together the idea of babywalling Lindsey from a history of playing the Sims and knowing the wall to kill trick. But I went back to listen to episode 93 to get the in Idle Thumbs canon explanation of what babywalling is. The realization by Sean that what he is explaining is horrifying is just the best kind of moment. Highly recommend relistening to that episode.