Virtual Fools

People who know me might have heard me mention at one point or another that I attribute the SNES generation of J-RPGs with partially teaching me how to read (this, coupled with AOL Instant Messenger as a substitute for a proper typing class, makes me a firm supporter of “popular culture”).  I always loved reading and probably did a bit more of it than most people, but it was not until FFII (VI) for the SNES that I took a nose-dive into sci-fi and fantasy.  While I’m interested in … Continue Reading

So I came across this website which will analyze your name for you and generate a report of what it means. Generally I think these things are stupid. Actually, I still do. Especially since this name analyzer is a part of a Kabalarian Philosophy website. What is Kabalarian? Hell if I know. It seems to be a mish-mash of all sorts of Eastern philosophies with a Canadian twist. But that won’t stop me from giving a report of what your most trusted Virtual Fools authors’ names mean. Continue Reading

That’s right, folks. I bring you Shatter, “The First Computerized Comic!” So there I was, browsing the ten cent rack at a local bookstore–the section where they dump all of the stuff that they can’t buy from customers but offer to place outside, with the ten and twenty-five cent proceeds donated to NPR–and I happened upon this interesting looking book. I saw this messy cover and was immediately intrigued by the apparent mix of Blade Runner and Han Solo. Needless to say, I was … Continue Reading

I have been kicking around ideas for a new “Notes on One Song” column for a while now, and finally decided on Donald Byrd’s “Fancy Free.” Byrd is a famous jazz trumpeter and probably doesn’t much appeal to many VF readers, so I decided to write the column my personal blog.

Though long neglected, my blog and I just celebrated two years of at least monthly updates. If you have never visited, Notes on Culture is mainly my hub for various projects I’m working on or for writing that doesn’t quite fit into my other projects. Take … Continue Reading

The Temptations really defined the Motown sound. Slick, smooth, catchy, fun, and skilled, they were (and to some extent, are still) the definitive band of the moment and movement. They didn’t exist in a vacuum, however. As some genres rose to prominence–namely jazz-rock, spacy pop, and the whole “San Francisco Sound”–The Temptation’s music became infused with new sensibilities.

Was their 1970 album “Psychedelic Shack” a good idea? I think so, but a lot of other people probably do not. The band combines their ethereal vocals with … Continue Reading

I always approach July 4th with a bit of ambivalence.  On the one hand, I am deeply “into” holidays, am a fan of times when people are inordinately nice to one another, and like any excuse to overeat grilled food.  On the other hand, I take a look at the state of my nation, in the sum total of its parts, and can’t help but think that the festivities should be postponed until some things–quality of life, disastrous educational policies, an ailing economy, the ecological crisis, and the rest–are diagnosed, addressed, and changed.  Good luck, right?  And the discovery of … Continue Reading

At the beginning of the fall semester of 2007, the University of Virginia’s Information, Technology, and Communication staff announced that student email would be eventually be moved off of UVa’s central mail servers and onto one of two new platforms, depending on student choice. They partnered with Google for Gmail and Microsoft for Live@edu.

Since I am no longer living in the University community, this announcement and its responses flew right by me. I only found out today, when ITC emailed UVa students and alumni, that the migration process would begin now. As someone who has attended the University at an … Continue Reading

Comics can be very bizarre.  On the one hand, they often have the ability to condense incredibly complicated information in a readily understandable way.  On the other, popular comics (especially superhero comics) tend to contain the most outlandish, potentially confusing goings-on of any artform.  It is no wonder that comicdom breeds tenacious fans.  Merely understanding some of the long story arcs, character metamorphoses over several years, and levels of reference between issues can require a lifetime of dedication.  I am a recently serious (though still casual and occasional) comic book reader.  One of … Continue Reading

Forty years ago, baseball cards were the main genre of collectible card for kids (and, growing out of those earlier generations, adults as well). At the risk of being overly imprecise, I’ll just arbitrarily say that non-sport collectible card sets really “took off” about 25 years ago. This, of course, is coming from a guy who has a complete set of Bill & Ted’s Most Atypical Trading Cards. Hey, I’ll buy anything if it’s cheap enough! Anyway, something known as the “collectible card game” swept onto the scene in 1993. My friends were playing … Continue Reading

While at our friend Matt’s wedding this weekend, J and I took the opportunity to try an alcoholic energy drink that we hadn’t seen in stores before. Like Sparks and Tilt, this caffeinated malt beverage is super sweet. Specifically, we tried Joose Orange which is 9.9% ABV. Hit the video for our full review.

[YouTube]

I am usually wary of nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. Many of the major entertainment genres are based on the fuzzy, rosy-hued (yet imperfect) memories of childhood. Silk screen reprint shirts saying “Led Zeppelin Tour 1973″ DO appeal to aging rockers, and their residual impact also hits current teens.  The nostalgia market is big business for the old and the young.

I am a collector of some things, and realize that part of the compulsion is to symbolically, if not physically, regain something that was lost through time, carelessness, or lack of foresight.  Nostalgia, up to a point, is part … Continue Reading

Having recent finished with my final schoolwork of the semester–but knowing full well that I still have quite a bit on my “to do” list–I decided that it was high time to fool around with this Muxtape thing that Bobby recently wrote about.

One’s immediate thought come summertime (broadly speaking, not in the actual first-day-of-the-season sense) is to go 80s and cheese it up: Miami Vice, designer drinks, Lionel Richie binges, awkward leisure clothes, the works.  Since Bobby beat me to the line on the 80s thing with his Muxtape–and has a much more in-depth knowledge of that decade … Continue Reading

One VF trend that I’ve noticed over the last few months is that myself and Bobby seem to be encountering lots of things from our youth (hell, even from just a few years ago) that are in some way different, gone, or nowadays totally unknown. Following on the heels of Bobby’s farewell to Don from Don and Mike is my ode to an important institution of my formative years: Hollywood Video.

Why Hollywood Video? Aren’t they just a corporation that messed up? How did … Continue Reading

When I visited Kevin the other weekend we undertook an old tradition: purchasing and trying novelty alcohol. Our distance has kept us from enjoying this practice for quite some time, so it was good to get back into the swing of it. And, for the first time ever, we’re able to share this with you via “video”. You see, there’s this thing called “The YouTube” that allows people to upload videos of anything they want! We were going to do some sort of lipsyncing, but I think that’s probably already been done. Instead we sample … Continue Reading

Raleigh, NC is a weird city. It doesn’t really have a skyline (five tall buildings, at least, do not constitute a skyline) and only ever feels like a city for a few blocks of the proper downtown. I live in Raleigh, but in something of a residential/suburban area about five minutes drive from the heart and soul of it all. What is equally amazing is that I also happen to live about five minutes away from a rural area, the quintessential “country.” If one is feeling torn between wanting the hustle/bustle of the urban with the … Continue Reading

I just got back from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Philadelphia, PA. No, this post does not have anything to do with film studies, being an academic, or describing the bulk of what and who I saw. Rather, I want to present a sort of roundabout way - a kind of thinking out-loud, or an unpatterned system of associations - which got me to thinking a lot about the Underworld song “Born Slippy/Nuxx.” You see, SCMS has a very large book exhibition where publishers of books in film and related fields bring their … Continue Reading

The Virtual Fools are proud to present the “best” of 2007. The judging criteria has been quite rigorous: “pick your favorites of the good stuff that you actually got to watch/read/hear/play/experience.” Read on!

Best Film

Kevin - The most touching film I saw this year was The Savages (directed by Tamara Jenkins). Despite the fact that it virtually oozed “indie” and felt similar to many recent vintage pop-indie films during key scenes (especially Little Miss Sunshine), it was by turns serious and funny. This will probably go down as the year of Philip Seymour Hoffman - though each … Continue Reading

What I am about to write will be slightly dripped in self-congratulatory language and somewhat overblown reasoning. Before I get too deep into it, let it be known that one of the reasons why I waited as long as I did had to do with money. Cold, hard cash. Video games require wayyyyyy too much of the stuff. Constantly owning new games for new systems requires a strictly apportioned amount of one’s income, not to mention free time. Further, the massive costs involved in gaming are not simply an obstacle preventing preteens from owning their … Continue Reading

I’ve finally decided to write about a trend I noticed long ago but hoped might subside. I’m really interested in the multitude of social networking sites, platforms, and applications that have been released. I’m especially interested in seeing what other people are doing and reading online. I’ve enjoyed my time on Twitter and Tumblr. Problem is, I’ve never been able to get more than one or two people to sign up for these services with me. I’ve basically been Tweeting at myself for the last year on Twitter and posting Tumblr stories … Continue Reading

I won’t be doing any Black Friday sales/festivities this year (probably for the best), but I wanted to talk about how far afield it has expanded. I haunt the forums at DVD Talk, a DVD news and reviews website with a lively forum community. Their DVD Bargains page has been listing the buzz-worthy sales on movies and related peripherals. The real winners so far have been the online-only DVD Planet and Deep Discount DVD sales. However, word is starting to trickle out about Black Friday sales. For those of you who … Continue Reading

There are a lot of social networking sites these days to take care of a huge range of networking needs. LinkedIn for professionals, Pownce for groups with material to share, and Last.fm for music or statistics fans. But, all of these web services suffer a bit of an identity crisis. Who do you connect to? In Last.fm you could choose to connect to your friends or to random people who seem to have the same musical taste as you (or both, of course). When approaching Twitter you have to think about whom … Continue Reading

I’ve become a fan of the blog of Paul Stamatiou, an undergrad student here at Georgia Tech.  He’s got a knack for writing about technology and covers some interesting things that other blogs only throw passing glances at in their hurry to post every bit of news.  Yesterday he posted a video that was created by Kansas State University professor Michael Wesch about college students in the digital age called “A Vision of Students Today.” While compelling, the video does not elaborate on the facts presented (and … Continue Reading

[Note: The images that I intended to have accompany this piece are stuck on my cell phone, which for some reason does not want to synch up with my computer’s Bluetooth. Until then, verbal imagination, not visual!]

It has been roughly a week since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has hit shelves across the world. People - fans and newcomers alike - are deadly series about this book. This strikes as slightly funny, since the title is almost an oxymoron akin to Harry Potter and the Jumbo Shrimp…a hallow, of course, being associated with religious rites, presumably … Continue Reading

Walking down the street I overheard some construction workers who were putting a new door on a house.

Worker 1: “Is this straight?”
Worker 2: “Straight?  Fuckin’ Ray Charles could have done a better job than that.”

You don’t realize how dependent you are on modern technology until you’re spooning French out of your salad back into the bottle because it doesn’t have an easy-pour cap.

Fan conventions are often punctuated by a variety of panels, workshops, and open discussions about issues and topics that are important to the community at large. These events are scheduled because event planners understand that there is a subset of the fan community that is interested in self-analysis. Many attend specialized conventions to expand their knowledge of the subculture, learn about the fringes of popular culture, or simply become more involved in their hobbies. Whoever hosts the panel has to reconcile this sort of attendant with the sort of fan who exclusively attends to talk about their … Continue Reading

Okay, call me old fashioned, but when has it ever been necessary to “transition to a roll at any moment”? That’s what Heely’s Wheel Shoes Company claims “athletes of all skill levels” can do when they’re wearing shoes with wheels located in the heels.

Image Courtesy DesertNews.com

I’m sure you’ve seen these before assuming you’ve ever been in a public place. I’m sorry, let me be more specific. A public place in which commerce is taking place. That’s more like it. You’ll be pushing your cart around in Target, loading up on candles, luggage, bedding, and … Continue Reading

The Re-Return of the Repressed in Return of the Living Dead: NecropolisLast October in Asheville, North Carolina, I had the pleasure of attending a theatrical viewing of Saw II (2005) with a group of experts. Don Mancini (creator of the Child’s Play franchise), Barry Sandler (screenwriter), and Ken Hanke (genre scholar and critic) shared my distaste for the film, which I felt to be slightly hard to pin-down at first. Saw II was imaginative, stylish, and often displayed verve, yet left me sour. It was certainly a cutting-edge (puns aside) horror film, symptomatic … Continue Reading

FantaSCI 07/23/05 - Chesapeake, Virginia

I’m not sure what first brought my attention to this one day sci-fi and fantasy con, but I was skeptical at first. Venue was my initial concern. Housed at the Chesapeake Central Library, it seemed like it had the potential for being a slapdash, apologetic sort of programming geared more toward wallets than toward interest. However, checking out the guest list and seeing the variety of what was going to be there, I figured that the cost of admission (free, but with … Continue Reading

While sifting through the ever-amusing 50 cent bin at the Comics Cubicle in Williamsburg some weeks ago, I stumbled - nay, by providence was guided toward - the most promising comic title I had seen in many moons. Suddenly, between my unworthy index finger and thumb, there rested a pristine, as-yet-unopened copy of Mr. T and the T Force #1, complete with GOLD FOIL TRADING CARD. Hardly able to contain myself, I threw a handful of change at the cashier (in this, my hyperbolic retelling of the tale) and rushed home. I will describe this jewel in the order I … Continue Reading

I’m really angry. And because this is the Internet, I’ll tell you why. First off, what is this thing called?

A spatula, rigth? That’s correct, as clearly indicated by both common knowledge and the retail industry. So that’s a given.

Well, what is this called?

There are a few camps here. Firstly, there are those of you who immediately said “spatula” and didn’t think twice about it. Then there are those of you who said “spatula” and thought, “oh weird, those two things have the same name even though … Continue Reading

I’ve always been a man who has enjoyed a good soda (pop for you freaks in certain parts of the country, and “a Coke” for those of you who call all sodas by one cola’s brand name). Back in 7th and 8th grade I used to drink three sodas a day, which in retrospect was way too much and it makes me wonder why I’m not fat. Now I have trouble finishing a 20 oz bottle. But I still love good soda.

So that’s why it pissed me off when I found out recently that this new Black … Continue Reading

I’ve always been a man who has enjoyed a good soda (pop for you freaks in certain parts of the country, and “a Coke” for those of you who call all sodas by one cola’s brand name). Back in 7th and 8th grade I used to drink three sodas a day, which in retrospect was way too much and it makes me wonder why I’m not fat. Now I have trouble finishing a 20 oz bottle. But I still love good soda.

So that’s why it pissed me off when I found out recently … Continue Reading

We each picked a number of different categories to write on, some the same, some completely different. But here’s stuff from 2005 that Virtual Fools believes is worth getting a mention on the Internet.

Jimmy’s Picks
Best Movie: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” I’ll be honest: when I look back, it seems like I didn’t watch that many new movies in 2005. But of the ones I did see, I feel like I saw the best. “Hitchhiker’s Guide” gets top honors because it’s fun, it’s hilarious, it managed to breathe new life into a long-running and much-abused franchise etc. Plus, I … Continue Reading

G Gordon Liddy Icons Virtual Fools likes to jump on the new trend bandwagon like a frog jumps on a lilly-pad. So we’re proud to present the newest internet fashion: G Gordon Liddy AIM Buddy Icons!! That’s right! Now you too can have the face of Watergate as your buddy icon. No, it’s not political. It’s just about a man with a moustache.

Oh, and of course we should throw in … Continue Reading

John Kenneth Muir’s Official Website

KF- I’ll start with the general. First off, one of my best friends is Chris Muir, and he is related to John Muir the naturalist. Are you?

JKM - I think so but I don’t know for sure. My ancestors were in Hoboken, New Jersey. One was a fire chief, in Hoboken, New Jersey in the 1880s, his name was John Muir. I have his fire lantern as an heirloom. I like to claim I’m related to the other John Muir, but that might be a lie.

KF - I’ve read other … Continue Reading

Ever seen Resident Evil (2002)?  All said and done, it is an interesting little fragment of popular culture.  Based on a game (which in turn was based on “a host of other horror films, from Alien to Dawn of the Dead,” themselves based on Westernized interpretations of the slowly germinating beliefs, values and insights from people all over the globe), it was a mild box office success, but found a more receptive home on DVD.

  Gamers knew the source series, one of the most well-loved of the Playstation … Continue Reading

Paul Miller, also known as DJ Spooky, in his essay Loops of Perception, voices his theories on music sampling and the market of digital information. The issues with sampling come from the conflict of copyrights and intellectual property with appropriated media. This conflict is especially prevalent today because of the ease in which an artist can obtain media digitally. Music artists often use sounds and rhythms that already exist because they say what the artist wants to say. An artist being forced to use 100% original material would be like a person … Continue Reading

The Political Technology of Super-Hero Individuals: Mark Millar’s The Ultimates Throughout much of their history, super-hero comic books have been about good versus evil. Simple binaries were set up between the hero and the villain-Batman and The Joker, Spider-Man and the Green Goblin-which allowed for simple tales about right and wrong, crime and punishment. Over the years, writers have developed heroes with dynamic personalities and tragic villains. There have often been conflicts between mainstream law and the heroes who vow to uphold it. In the X-Men universe, much of the … Continue Reading

To call ourselves the “Instant Messenger Generation” may be a little much, but there is no doubt the various instant messaging programs are essential sources of communication. Since, in the grand scheme of things, IM programs are recent developments the standards of conduct, communication protocol, and etiquette are still being developed. It is with this in mind that I’m going to take it upon myself to discuss the implications of one of the major AOL Instant Messenger components: Away Messages.
The popularity of Away Message critiquing has increased in the last couple of years so I do recognize that I’m … Continue Reading