Leach Center Spa FSU

            The Leach Center is one of a half dozen places I bother to be on campus.  Bellamy and HCB teach me things, the Student Union allows me to get food (when I'm desperate enough to buy a $4 slice of Papa John's rather than just eating one of the various squirrels that race around the campus), the SLC is where I watch movies (in a room filled with shit heads who ruin the mood), the Library is where I all-night at the last minute an assignment that decides my GPA to a startling level.  But Leach is where I go to exercise, hoping to get fit, maybe inspire lustful glances from beautiful women.

What? I like women who prioritize a good health regimen.

            Here is my random complaint: the spa needs work.

            There are two hot tubs, two steam rooms, and one sauna, all of them have problems, not the least of which being I think they pose the threat of giving me meningitis some day when they have not been cleaned properly enough.

They got rid of a lot of equipment and put in a lot of stuff that sucks to use, so now all the good stuff is constantly taken.  Good luck.

            Sauna, honestly this is the least problematic of the three, sure the wooden frame used screws rather than wooden pegs because the carpentry going into this was by lowest bidder and was not up to the standards of common sense.  See, metal... in a room that is 180 degrees... GETS FUCKING HOT!  You will be laying down, or leaning back and be suddenly scaled by the head of a screw.  What is more, metal expands when hot, wood expands too, but slower, which causes the screws to stretch the holes they were drilled into, making the whole thing rickety as the screws loosen the frame's hold on them, and the boards that make it up.  So, rickety, pinchy, and occasionally branding.

            Now the Steam Rooms.  Or, at present, Steam Room, as one of them has not been in service for a couple weeks.  Which one is out of service?  The good one.  What makes it good?  The door shuts on its own.  Yes the one that is currently in operation has a door that doesn't close until the fourth or fifth try, because they don't put a handle on the inside so you just pull it shut behind you.  this means you are walking into a Steam Room that slowly turns into "Room", a wet room mind you, but devoid of steam.  The place is also filthy from the constant use, people wear shoes in there in spite of the rules and track in dirt, which turns to mud.  Mud you can see, because all the steam has left the room.

            Now the cesspools-- Hot Tubs.  Let me say this, if you turn on the bubbles, and the surface gets covered not only in bubbles, but bubbles that have a rainbow-on-an-oil-slick color to them, and have density enough to hold small coins out of the water... THEN YOU NEED TO CLEAN THE WATER!  More chlorine is not enough, it's not just germs in there, it is enough dead skin and skin oil to make a slick.  That is disgusting.  And why, did the life guard just turn on the bubbles?  There are two tubs, I chose to sit in the one that had no bubbles going, and they turn on the jets without being asked; if I wanted jets I would have sat in the other one with the insanely old Asian guy.  Here is an idea, why not just put a timer next to each tub that controls the jets, or a switch; like every other gym in the universe so the life guards, who should be guarding lives (lives of college students who chose to swim recreationally and need a life guard like I need a sippy lid for my Sprite, but whatever).

They don't even have Tiki bar.  I need something brightly colored and full of alcohol.  Also, the phrase "Filthy Hot Tub" in Google Image gives back a lot of pornography.  Like, a lot.

             Then there is also the company, for every gorgeous woman doing yoga stretches in a bikini or shorts so short that they would allow a Med student a quick review for a gynecological exam, there are 200 frat guys who mostly just want to say the word "Bro" or "Braa" every second they are there while inferring to incidents of date rape; not to say all the women are great, if I hear one more hollow headed "Like" or "You Know" escape the lips of a sorority girl I think I will have to beat their head to a steaming splatter of gore on the hot coal machine in the sauna.

MORE LIKE THESE, PLEASE.  So long as they have something to talk about.

My 5 Favorite Books

            As a random little thought I figured I would do a top 5 list because lists are mentally very easy to digest and a recent movie release, along with anticipation for a movie coming out later this year has me thinking.  What are my top 5 favorite books?

            Number 5, and the spurring to write this, "The Hunger Games".  Since the movie is a very accurate and faithful adaptation, and it has made half a billion dollars already I feel redundant explaining the premise of young woman chosen to participate in a gladiatorial combat with other children.  The book is violent, and does an excellent job satirizing modern television, the disparities that exist between the rich and poor, all while framing through a single character that is ostensibly unlikable, having grown very bitter because of the absolute boiling crock-pot of shit her life has been.  It also has some good lines in it, strangely, my favorite line did not make it into the movie, even though the scene it is in did.  Whatever.

Have not read the other two... And I don't know if I ever will.

             Number 4, the movie adaptation of this, or at least part 1, will be out later this year, "The Hobbit".  As a kid the animated adaptation of this book was frequently, if not constantly checked out from the library, and while I read huge numbers of books (mostly Goosebumps, Animorphs, Spooksville, and other kids series) I actually didn't know that "The Hobbit" was a book for a long time, and only got around to reading it in high school, and I have since re-read it.  It is a lot of fun and the definitive classic in its genre, it is tightly written, and that works to its advantage, something its sequel does not have working for it.  This may make me a freak by nerd standards, but I find "The Lord of the Rings" over written and poorly paced.  Currently my epic fantasy thirst is being quenched by the "Game of Thrones" series (which I did a blog of) and I refuse to call it the "Song of... Whatever" because that is a stupid title for series of books, again something that might make me a freak among nerds.

This was a big part of me starting into fantasy.

             Number 3, this is actually my favorite part of a series of books that are all pretty good, though I think the last 2 are the weakest ending on downer notes rather than the jokes and good fun of the other 3, this is "Life, the Universe,and Everything".  It is the third book in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy in five parts.  It takes place as a group of renegade killer robots dressed as Cricket players set out to find and activate a weapon that will destroy all of creation.  The origins, the machinations, and the way all of the heroes of the series are drawn together to help solve the problem are bizarre and fun.  Sadly, since they tried to turn this book series into a movie franchise, and got someone infinitely unqualified to write and direct it doubtless this movie will have to wait another decade or two before it gets its turn at bat, hopefully with Edgar Wright or Steven Moffat at the helm.  Or both if there really is a Santa Claus in the hearts of children everywhere.

This really doesn't come up in this installment.

             Number 2, this one makes me think back to how my brother told me, "you (Josh) always identify with assholes in control of things," a fact I can't deny, this book is "Ender's Game".  Written by an author who has in recent times gone Christ-crazy and rages against the liberals of the world, the book explores how the smartest boy in the world is shaped by a militant world alliance to save humanity from the Alien bug menace which has twice invaded our space to horrifying result.  Ender, so nicknamed by his sister who could not pronounce Andrew, is a misanthropic child murderer who grows more and more distant as he figures out how to outsmart everyone.  Actually this book is considered the holy script of nerds everywhere because it isn't about a meat-head who gets handed power by a wise old wizard, but instead gets put through hell by his mentor figure, you know, like every father who has ever told their child, "You can be anything you want to be... So long as you are some kind of Doctor."

The timeline of this series gets a bit complex.

             My favorite book, much like the others follows a rather misanthropic person... Huh, just realized that... Huh, that probably means I am less than stellar person... Moving on, it is about the nature of religion in American society, it's "American Gods".  The man called Shadow is released from prison and encounters a con man called Wednesday who takes him down numerous rabbit holes to meet the living ideas of various traditions and superstitions that came over from the old world, and they are dying off in favor of modern ideas made of silicon and celebrity.  The author, Neil Gaiman, said he started off writing it in the first person but found he had to switch off because the main character was so listless and detached, rather a fish out of water story in which the fish was happy to suffocate without flopping.  It also does the original Heroes Journey to great impact.

I'm 70% sure this man is not a wizard.

Political Language and Children

            This is just a random thing that shows how learning worked for me as a kid.  I was born in 1985, and don't have to many memories before 1990, and the three strongest memories I have from that year was my brother falling and hitting his head at a house we lived at in Bradenton, moving into our house in North Port (I actually remember saying something like, "I turn 5 next week", in our soon to be living room that was completely devoid of furniture), and a conversation I heard between my parents about the first Gulf War (I remember my dad explaining how little military Iraq had and my Mom being concerned that the war was going to get out of control, I believe she was concerned because my uncle John was 17 at the time and a draft would have been a hard thing for our family).

Yeah, looks pretty bleak.

             The thing is I had no conscious memory of a presidential election, and I had always heard President Bush referred to as a Republican, and when he ran for reelection in 1992 I heard Republican and Democrat a lot, but did not really know what they meant, but I assigned them a definition in my head that I wasn't consciously aware of, I was 7 and really didn't care at the time so it was not something I really labeled out loud.

            Cut to 4 years later and President Clinton was running for reelection against Senator Dole and Ross Perot.  At some point I said this, "So now President Clinton is the Republican." and my dad responded with, "No, son he is a Democrat."  Which confused us both really so I explained my definition of Republican, "I thought Republican meant the guy who was in the office, and Democrat meant challenger."

            I had never heard the word incumbent, and had heard President Bush referred to by party so frequently as a child that I had come to think of the word in those terms.  Conversely, I had never heard anyone refer to President Clinton by his party, he had always been called President Clinton.

            I didn't really realize why that was until I read the book "Bias" Freshman year of college, that this is the sort of thing you don't notice until it is pointed out.  The major networks refer to Republican Presidents and other Republican office holders as Republicans, but they don't do that for Democrats, Fox News refers to Democratic officer holders as Liberal or Democrats, but just refer to Republican office holders by name and title.

            My family didn't have cable and watched ABC nightly news, so my mind had this engrained into it without noticing.  And since read "Bias" I have noticed something more, people in news who are not aligned with the President of the time, Bush or Obama, don't refer to them as President Bush or President Obama.  When Bush was President, ABC would call him Mr. Bush, while Fox would refer to him as the President.  Now things have flipped, Fox calls the President, Mr. Obama, and ABC calls him President Obama.  I am starting to wonder if these things are intentional slights or not, because it is rather consistent, and these "journalists" are reading from a teleprompter.

            Regardless, right now, lots of kids who don't chose what channel their parents watch are hearing either directly or indirectly the President getting referred to a certain way, and it is changing the way they understand the language of civics in the country.  changing the way they understand the words Socialist, Muslim, and Liberal.  I wonder how this will shape them.

Might make them all a bit cynical.

Initial Thoughts: "Deus Ex: Human Revolution"

            I went to Target the other day and found a 3 for 2 sale on video games.  Being that "Skyrim" was still 60 bucks and that was just not cost effective I instead decided to go the cheap bastard route and grabbed three Science Fiction games off the shelf.  One horror, "Dead Space 2" which I have not cracked open yet.  Another was puzzle, "Portal 2", which I really like though have an odd complaint that there might in fact be too many jokes in it.  And lastly an Role Playing Game, "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" (Christ that trailer is pretentious).  This little blog is about that last one.

"The Matrix" is still popular right?  Right?

            I have some complaints about this thing, and I haven't even finished the first level... Actually, that is my main complaint, the first level.  Here is the problem, since it is a role playing game, I have to determine what role I want to play, stealth killing opponents from the shadows or fire fights out in the open.  What is more I can chose to be more up close and personal, with stun guns, or far away with rifles.  This sounds great right?  Well, it might be, maybe they should let me play both a little and then let me decide.

            The game's first mission has you rescuing hostages from a luddite militia, you can chose to go lethal or non-lethal, up close or ranged... they then give you one weapon.  One.  Mother fuckers, if I were a rent a cop I would have truncheon, mace, and a side arm.  And they think a stun gun is enough for heading into a hostage situation?  Give me more guns.  Give me all the guns!  My character is a billion dollar cyborg prototype, and you cut costs when its game time?  Keep in mind all I have played is the tutorial, which had no stealth sections, so I have no idea if I even like stealth action, so how am I supposed to make a decision on that front?  What are the benefits of lethal vs non-lethal?  I don't know, they don't tell you.

MORE DAKKA!

             Another thing, I got the Tranquilizer rifle, and it is shit.  Too late to get a sub-machine gun?  Oh, well I guess I will just do melee stealth kills for now, "Assassin's Creed" and "Man Hunt" taught me how to do that much.  Guess what, there are power bars for melee knock-outs/kills.  You know that thing Master Chief does with such grace and ease it is akin to cracking his knuckles?  Yeah, you can do that twice before your body starts malfunctioning.  I, as a flesh and blood real life entity can choke out more than two people without needing a protein bar, hell give me a heavy pointy rock and I'll knock people out all god damn day, and the billion dollar cyborg super agent can't?  Huh?

A bowling pin will also work.

             Then there is the text problem, I knock a guy out and have to pick pocket him, can't read anything on the screen, pictures are vague, so I pick up everything and hope my inventory description will be legible, and I have a big HD-TV, I can accept and forgive this sort of thing from "Dead Rising" which was a launch title on the 360, but the system has been out for more than half a decade, text should not be a complaint.

            Here is a petty one: the main character sounds like he is out of breath all the time.  I know they are going for a gruff angst ridden anti-hero because there isn't 10,000 of those out in the world already, but does he have to sound awful?  Nathan Drake and Master Chief are angst ridden, but they hide it behind an upbeat snide attitude and straight talking can do spirit respectively.

            Controls.  When you are walking around, it is first person, but if you take cover it switches to third person, this happens in such a way as to completely disorient you.  I played "Red Dead Redemption" entirely in third person and it didn't hurt my immersion in the story.  I played "Fallout 3" entirely in first person and had no issue with cover and stealth.  Why does this need to juggle the two?  Pick one and do it well.  There are even first person games with cover systems that work really well they could have ripped off, like the first "Call of Juarez".  This is a dumb way to run things.

            Lastly is the plot.  Regular humans dislike cyborgs because they are unnatural, they are using augmentations to their bodies with technology.  That is horseshit.  I hate to break it to you, but anti-biotic treatments are not natural, neither are cell phones, artificial heart valves, or clothing for that matter (clothing is an artificial skin we wear to protect our real skin from the elements).  Furthermore the story shows that while people might want to get augmentations, they don't have to, they can be stupid like Jenny McCarthy and falsely believe that augmentations cause various forms of retardation.  There is a false dichotomy that drives the plot's main conflict, and that is poor writing.

            So pacing, presentation, controls, and core themes and story telling... Each fail right out of the gate for me.  That is a shame.  Who made this?  Square Enix.  Yeah, should have figured.  Compared to something like "Mass Effect 2" which has a clear motivation, clean combat, and solid writing and presentation I wonder why "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" has been so highly recommended.

Oh, and it isn't the setting or concept that is the problem, as this is my favorite anime ever, and it is very much the same thing.

My Reaction "Kony 2012"

            Hey, who in the last few days has thought about Kony2012?  Who in the last few days has heard about the documentary's producer losing his mind in the middle of San Diego?  Who has heard the conspiracy theories surrounding the growing awareness of Uganda as a country that needs liberating?  How many people out there have stopped giving a shit?  Well, call me a hipster, but I stopped caring before it was cool.

Seriously now, how many people even know where Uganda is?

            Hate to break it to you all but the world is filled with injustices, among them is pretty much the entire continent of Africa.  Ethnic cleansing, child soldiers, slavery, rape on a scale not seen since Genghis Khan, an inability to construct effective infrastructure, lack of access to water (though not alone on that one), lack of access to food, lack of access to school, racism on a scale not seen in the West since the West was colonizing Africa, a Patriarchy that is disgusting, and a cycle of violence and poverty that makes it impossible for the population to gather together harness the resources of the continent and truly become the world power they should be.

            The Kony2012 video was a viral internet sensation that drew a lot of attention to an issue that I am shocked to find out, there were still people who didn't know about it.  For god's sake then was a major Academy Award nominated film revolving around child soldiers and diamonds made just a few years ago.  And another about the massive ethnic cleansing that took place in Rwanda.  Do people just forget this stuff?  Better question: does not knowing or not caring make you a bad person?  The answer is, "no".

            The act of caring is a physical one, it burns glucose in your brain.  If you actually cared about everything that was wrong in the world, each and every social injustice that was out there all the time, from child soldiers to the continued use of the penny, then you would just burn away.  All that would be left is a brain that hovered in the air surrounded by some telekinetic field of outrage.  Trust me, I had that happen because my chief field of study is Political Science and the art of screwing people with their pants on.

            Honestly when people started talking about Kony2012 my reaction boiled down to this, "Well this should raise enough money to buy several shiny new bicycles, but not enough to even remotely affect the problem."  This video is not a sun rising on a world of endless night, it is a single flare going up, it is showing all the other people who live in this cold dark world that there is a group of people that need help, and some set off to find them, some went out to help, but it is a dark world, and it was just one flare, how long before people lose themselves in the darkness and can't even recall where the problem was?  Not very long.  It won't even take very long for people to make excuses as to why they shouldn't bother to help.  It won't take long before they just lose the stamina to care.  Because we are mortal, we can't care because there is just too much going on.

            That all being said, things are getting better in the world, even in Africa.  Life expectancy is going up, infant mortality rates are going down, and dictators are being over thrown (they'll be replaced, but the wheel in the sky keeps turning, before long those new tyrants will fall too).  We as a species are getting better at fighting against this sort of crap, and eventually like water on concrete the tools to fight injustice will seep into every crack.  But this "phenomenon" is just a bright flash, it is not final word.  So continue living your life, and every once in a while, remember to donate to end, volunteer to fight, or just think about something bad out in the world.  Because maybe just a little bit of your telekinetic outrage might seep its way out, and push things just a little closer to being better.  And one day a sun will rise.

How many people will write in his name on a presidential ballot?  I'm betting more than none.

Sex Education

            You know what is really pathetic?  The political issue that is going to define things for the next few years is going to be reproductive rights, sex education, and people's access to birth control.  It is the lead weight that will hang around the Republican party for years to come, because it is by far the most inconsistent part of the core ideology the party was founded on, the ideology of fair play.

            Agnostic freedoms, freeing the slaves, crushing the KKK, women's suffrage, all of these things were done by the Republican party.  Decrying the military industrial complex, fighting the war on drugs with treatment rather than jail sentences, those were both on the Republican party.  The FDA, that was the Republicans.  The idea that government can be used to create a level playing field for all participants is what the Republican party used to be about, now I don't know what it is about.

            They just beat the same two drums for mass appeal: lower taxes, gigantic army.  Those are not bad drums to beat, but now a third drum has begun to beat, and I have no clue why: Moral Fortitude.  The idea that through legal wrangling we can make people more moral, with all stick and no carrot people will fall into line with ideals that didn't even work when they were created centuries past.

            I don't want to live in a theocracy, and I don't like the idea of religion getting special treatment financially or socially.  I hate to break it to you but the phrase, "These are my beliefs, you have to respect them," doesn't hold water.  The only thing a person can be ethically judged on is their beliefs and actions.  If someone believes that violence against homosexuals or women is okay, then they are evil.  If someone believes that their world view must be followed by others under penalty, then they are a theocratic tyrant.

            I am pro sex education for a multitude of reasons, and I will explain why.  People typically will take the stance that, "the government should not take the role of a parent, and it is a parent's job to explain sex to children when they deem it appropriate."  That makes sense for the vast majority of families, most parents are capable of explaining the how's and why's of sex, but not all of them are.  What if I were to point out how many children are sexually abused by parents and care givers in this country?  How many of those abuse victims know enough about sex to know they are being abused?  How many of them know to seek help?  How to seek help?  How to explain the violence that is being put on them?  Sex education is not always about teaching children about how to have sex, but about healthy, safe sex, and what is abuse.  Can we all agree that educational role is important and needs to be handled by a teacher?

Who looks out for them?

             Beyond that, knowing how to use condoms, the pill, and spermicidal lubes are important for helping them have safe sex when they are adults.  It also creates a society that doesn't treat sex as a taboo, allowing us to talk about the subject more plainly and without shame, confusion, or regret.  Wouldn't everyone like to have a little less stress in their lives on this topic?  To know what they want out of a relationship and to be able to explain that?  Why is that considered bad?

            Here is the retort, "People shouldn't be having sex before marriage."  That does not hold up to scrutiny.  I don't believe in your religion, and I want to have sex, why should I have to wait until marriage when there are healthy means of having sex outside of marriage?  What is more, why shouldn't you still know about birth control just because you are married?  There are many healthy and happy couples that want to have these options available and knowing what they are and how to use them without personal taboos and confusion helps.

            Lastly the life versus choice argument.  "It is a life".  Say the billboards as I drive through the creepy redneck part of Florida.  You are right, it is.  And as I have gone over in the last few paragraphs, it is a life that does not need to happen through safe sex.  Barring that this is the kind of Kryptonian sperm that can get through a condom, survive the spermicidal fluid, get to the egg, and is then not shed anyway.  I still think that ultimately the choice resides with the woman who has to carry the potential child to term.  It is her body that is to be used as an incubator.  However, imagine this happening in the world I am trying to envision, a world where the topic of being pregnant is not seen as something shameful, but an occasional by product of living a full and active life.  A world in which the presence of a child is not financially debilitating.  A world in which everyone can be assured that their children will grow up safe and happy.  I imagine this world would not have as much of a need for clinics because the process, while still performed would be seen as a rare but sometimes necessary choice that is not taken lightly.

            I suppose if I have a political stance it is that of pro-sex.  I think people should be able to talk about it frankly.  I think people should be able to say Fuck on television.  I think that instead of sex being turned into this mysterious commercial and social force that lobotomizes us all because we worry about the finer bullshit details of other people trying to rule our bodies (yes, "our" bodies, last time I checked condoms are not covered by that health care bill and I think most guys would like them to be cheaper), we should instead all want more.  We should all come to expect higher standards of living as the world gets greater and greater technology.  We shouldn't have to settle.  Just like we expect roads to be paved, and 9-1-1 to respond to our calls we should be able to expect access to medicine that makes us all more productive and happier.  And this is why I think the Republican party has turned into stupid in recent times, as we have to listen to Rush Limbaugh, Rick Santorum, and somehow still Sarah Palin talk about how they have such moral authority to make the world behave itself.

            Where have Teddy, Abe, and Ike's ideas of fair play gone?

The Death Penalty

            Let's talk about the death penalty.  All governments must answer the question of whether they have the authority to end the life of a criminal should the crime they committed be so heinous or so damaging that only the death of the perpetrator could bring proper catharsis and assurances to the community at large that the crime could not be repeated by that individual.

            Here is a thought game to the moral quandary:

            You are in a switching station to train tracks, a train is coming and unable to stop, there are two tracks, the track the train is currently on has 5 workers who are doing some routine maintenance and will not be able to get out of the way, on the auxiliary track there is only one worker who would not be able to get out of the way. Do you throw the switch, killing the one worker, in order to save the five?

            Effectively you either allow 5 people to die, by not rescuing them, or you kill a man in order to rescue the 5.  The death penalty works off that similar logic, let me modify this.

            You are in a switching station to train tracks, a train is coming and unable to stop because a maniac disabled the breaks, and killed the engineer.  There are two tracks, the track the train is currently on has a broken security camera so you can't tell whether the track is clear, but you know that track is due for maintenance; if the track is being serviced for maintenance then there will be workers present and they will not be able to get out of the way.  On the auxiliary track there is only one person, the maniac.  After killing the engineer he fled down the auxiliary track and will not be able to get out of the way of the train if you send it his way. Do you throw the switch, killing the one maniac, in order to save an unknown number of workers that the maniac put into danger having already killed an engineer?

            Now substitute those potential maintenance workers with fellow prisoners, guards, psychiatrists, all of the people that might interact with the maniac, should you sacrifice them for the sake of the maniac?  Is his life worth even the potential threat he posses to the hypothetical people now that he has already killed someone?

            I say kill him.