People that Look Down on Wikipedia

Has this ever happened to you? You’re having a conversation with a friend about something you both are interested in (let’s say just that it’s Jake Gyllenhaal’s weirder looking older brother “sister” Maggie Gyllenhaal). Your friend looks confused when you tell them that Maggie Gyllenhaal is actually not half human and half three-toed sloth. They skeptically ask you where you heard this. “I read it on Wikipedia.” you reply. Your friend laughs, asks you if you’re serious, and then informs you that you’re a filthy moron for believing what you read on Wikipedia.

Look out, kids! It's a wild animal!! ...oh wait...Nevermind, it's just a baby animal.

I recently read one of the posts on a very, very funny blog you might have heard of called Stuff White People Like. The post I enjoyed so much was titled, “Where the Wild Things Are.” In the post, the very perceptive writer notes that one of things “white people” hate the most is when things they like go mainstream. Part of the post reads:

“This is partly due to their fear that something they love will be made accessible to more people and thus enjoyed by more people which immediately decreases the amount of joy a white person can feel towards the original property. Yes, it’s complicated.”

Though the word is never used in the post, the author was clearly talking about pretension. People (of all races) hate when something they enjoy is made available to the masses. Someone who was a fan of the Adam Young solo project, Owl City, will likely be turned off to his smash hit single, “Fireflies,” since its rise to popularity in late 2009. Why? Because there’s nothing special about liking Owl City if everyone likes Owl City!!

The reason he wants planet Earth to move slowly is so he can enjoy this brief moment of popularity as much as possible.

I had a history teacher in High School who absolutely detested Wikipedia. She said that it’s information could not be trusted so we were forbidden to use it as a source on papers.  I actually really liked that teacher, but I still always thought that she was really trying to say, “This class isn’t supposed to be easy! High School is SERIOUS!!!”

Frankly, I’m not even very sure that the information on Wikipedia is unreliable at all. Every time I try to edit the Sean Connery page, writing that he discovered America and won the Stanley Cup in 2002, someone changes it back a minute later!

Sean Connery sailed the ocean blue in twenty-hundred-and-zero-two...suck it Trebek...

Bottom line, Wikipedia is great! Everyone loves it! Some professors at Harvard University even included the online encyclopedia in their class syllabi! Where did I read that? Guess…

Bible-Heavy Facebook Posts

Answer me this, if a Christian posts a Bible verse on Facebook and everyone is around to hear it, does it make a sound? More on that later.

Feel like you haven't alienated your friends enough? Have we got an app for you!

If you’re like me, you have friends that are hard to deal with. Specifically, I have a few friends that just wont stop talking about cars. All they do is talk about cars. When we get in my car, all they do is tell me about other cool cars and what I could do with my car. Personally, it just makes me want to drive my crappy car into oncoming traffic. It’s not that I think cars are totally stupid. Really, it just bothers me that they wont go out of their way to talk with me about something that might build our relationship. God forbid they talk about their family or a new movie. That might not satisfy their need to express their self!

Eventually, we could talk about cars once they had proven to me that cars were worth my time; but when they go on and on about cars without me giving any indication that I might be interested, they don’t exactly give any real reason to appreciate cars…

This could get you from A to B so much better than other cars!

Okay, now back up…what if I wasn’t talking about cars…I think that unless you ate Drano as a kid, you can see where this is going… The very last thing Jesus Christ told Christians to do before he descended into heaven in Matthew 28 was to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of Christians think this means to get together in large groups and sing along to Hillsong United songs.

Christians are constantly doing things to push away the Non-Christians that they’re supposed to be showing love to. When they get on Facebook and post some sappy Bible verse as their status, they’re not giving Non-Christians any reason to appreciate Jesus because they aren’t displaying Christ-like attributes.

I understand that Jesus isn’t something Christians should hide, and I can understand a Christian wanting to express their love for Jesus to their friends. However,  I can’t imagine any Non-Christian getting a spiritual boner because of a posted Bible verse they saw on Facebook, and I feel like loving on Non-Christians is what the Christian faith is all about.  I think that they are much more likely to feel put off by their Christian friend’s post (if they weren’t already put off by the thousand other Christian stereotypes). They might as well be bragging about their food to a hungry person.

Are you hungry? Well then, allow me to talk about food!

James Cameron’s Avatar

Well, it’s been over a month since James Cameron finally released the film he has been working on for fifteen years. After seeing the film, I’m confused. What was this guy doing for fifteen years? The official story is that he was waiting for the 3D technology to be developed. Personally, I don’t buy that. Below is a scrappy, textual timeline which describes what I imagine he was up to for all those years.

Click the pic for reasons not to ask him for an autograph...

1994 – During one of James Cameron’s daily movie marathon of films he has directed himself,  Cameron notices his cat’s negative reaction to mention of the word “Skynet” (actually the cat is just constantly meowing out of hunger because James Cameron hasn’t fed him for weeks.  He’s been too busy watching all of his movies again and again). He decides his cat must hate corporate America as much as he does. Cameron begins a decade-long obsession, spending the next few months trying to teach his cat to walk, talk, and appreciate strong female characters.

1995 – After a year of failure, James Cameron goes to see Disney’s Pocahontas. He is asked to leave the theater after clapping and cheering every time the British military is portrayed as sadistic. He returns the next day and is again kicked out after sobbing uncontrollably every time the titular character does anything empowering. He returns every day for weeks until he is banned from the theater for punching a man whose wife compared the film to Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves (1990). Depressed, decides to shoot footage of the only mess bigger than him, the Titanic.

"What do you mean 'historically innacurate?'"

1996 – James Cameron sleeps outside the local Wal-Mart for three weeks with his cat waiting to get his VHS copy of Pocahontas. Finally in line to purchase his movie, he overhears someone describing the movie, Fern Gully. Intrigued, Cameron buys it as well. The next few months are spent in front of the TV watching each film again and again and again. Many trips are made back to the store to repurchase the movies after his tapes wear out. During one of these trips, Cameron runs into Linda Hamilton, his baby mama who starred in the first two terminators. He had forgotten all about his daughter since he got his cat.

1997 – James Cameron’s “masterpiece”, Titanic, is released in theaters. He makes tons of money which he uses to buy more cats, promising to stay true to his original feline friend. To tell his favorite cat from the rest, he paints her blue. Soon after his film is released, he marries Linda Hamilton. Cameron tries at first to hide his marriage from his cat, worrying she will be outraged at his unfaithfulness. Surprisingly, the cat seems indifferent. Cameron wonders if maybe animals are less emotionally complex than people. He laughs and quickly shakes off the notion.

1998 – James Cameron grows less happy with his marriage. He wishes that the intimacy he experiences with his wife could be felt with his blue cat.

1999 – James Cameron sees Star Wars Episode I. For the next few weeks, James Cameron pretends he’s in space. When he is asked to come to dinner, he’s claims that there’s no oxygen at the dinner table and sneaks off with his blue cat. His wife doesn’t stay with him much longer.

...say what you want, but at least Jar Jar didn't have a ponytail/appendage...

2000 – Surviving Y2K (or as he called it, “the rise of Skynet”), James Cameron shuns all technology. He spends all his time outside, listening to all his neighbors have fun connecting to the internet. He wishes he could connect to the tree outside his house instead of the stupid internet. He is joined by Suzy Amis, an actress who he marries soon afterwards.

2001 – Unaware of 9/11 because of his technophobia, James Cameron is enraged to hear that troops are being sent overseas. He can only imagine the villainous military from Pocahontas.

Watch out kids! They're just trying to steal your oil!!! Haven't you seen Avatar???

2002 – Cameron sees Star Wars Episode II. Cameron finds himself wishing he could ride the creatures from the movie. Still afraid of the internet and longing to legally marry his cat, Cameron mentally constructs a world where people sexually connect with animals for intimacy and trees for information.

2003 – James Cameron draws creatures for his world. He slightly changes the appearance of actual animals (adding two legs and odd shaped mouths), and is very please with himself (as usual). Worried people will notice, he makes them weird colors and takes away all their hair.

2004 – James Cameron is approached about creating a space epic. Excited, Cameron celebrates by growing his hair long. When he is told by his wife that it looks gross, he tells her that his cat likes it. He secretly wishes that there was a disturbing biological purpose for his long hair.

2005 – James Cameron watches a new show on Nickelodeon called Avatar: The Last Airbender. Excited about a show that is all about no technology, he watches it as much as possible, forgetting to feed his blue cat.

Wait...that creature has more than four legs...shouldn't it be in Avatar?

2006 – Cameron’s blue cat dies from starvation. James Cameron blames Nickelodeon. He swears vengeance on the cartoon and names his project Avatar so that Nickelodeon can never acquire the rights to the title and make a feature film.

2007 – James Cameron starts a rumor that he’s a creative genius. He tells everyone to tell a friend. It quickly becomes the most successful pyramid scheme known to man.

2008 – While watching Pocahontas for the 100,000,000,000th time, Cameron gets a phone call from Jon Landau, Avatar‘s c0-producer. Pressured to quickly design a storyboard for his movie, Cameron quickly puts together the first thing that comes to his mind, checking back on his movie from time to time for no specific reason.

2009 – Avatar is released into theaters. Liberals in theaters all over the country make Pee Wee Herman proud.

"I swear, if anyone uses the word 'predictable'..."

So there you have it. This is how James Cameron came up with that movie that’s making so much money. I’ll admit, I wasn’t a fan. Yea it was visually phenomenal, but it was about as original as a twelve-year-old girls Myspace page. It was all beauty no brains. Basically, it was the cinematic incarnate of everyone that sat at the “cool table” in high school. Ironically, I felt like all the army scenes were written by the kids from my high school that wore black and hated the Iraq war (even though they were politically uneducated).

I will say this though. If you like recycled plot lines, less-than-believable characters, and tooooons of bestiality…well, then this movie might be for you!