Good Riddance, Blog

Initially, noting that the due date for this project was tomorrow and all I needed was a few paragraphs to be done with it, I was going to come up with some other random filler topic and finish up as fast as possible. Unfortunately, I was horrified to learn that I have a conscience. So I decided to dedicate this last post to the all the fun times I have had with this project. Which means that this will be short. Hey, give me credit for actually trying to think up something. Seriously. I only need three "quality" blog posts, which I have, so three... "un-quality" posts should be fine.

Perhaps the only fun I've had with this blog was exposing that fraud Kanetkar. I mean, look at his pitiful excuse at a clever rebuttal to my refutation of his flimsy article on the alleged benefits the Pokémon video game series has on children. What a laughable excuse for a "Defense of Truth and Justice." Watching him squirm as he tries to wriggle his way out of my hermetic argument amuses me. He tries to defend his grammatical failings with nonsensical claims about "average keyboards" and silly things like that. He then veers off the points I made to declare his support for the common man, which reveals that Mr. Kanetkar has an unnatural affinity for channeling the late seventh President of the United States, the infamous Andrew Jackson.

Mr. Kanetkar also appears to be out of touch with reality, or at least the reality of my impenetrable argument. "Pokémon can die," he claims. What he does not appear to realize is that Pokémon are not real. Pokémon are fictional creatures created by a team of video game developers in Japan. They exist solely on video game cartridges and discs. In-game, no matter what a once-innocent-but-now-sadistic child may subject their Pokémon to, they will not die. Of course, one could argue that they die in the Pokémon animated series, but any individual with basic brain functions would be able to tell that I was referring to Pokémon in the video game series.

But enough of this talk. I am done with this blog. It was a fun 115 days... OK, not really. But it was alright.

So farewell, my dear and loyal readers. Beware the venomous words of that buffoon, Kanetkar.

Alex

A Refutation of the Kanetkar Theory of Pokémon Being Good for Children

In his article "What Darwin Can Learn From Ash Ketchum," author Sachin Kanetkar claims that the Pokémon video game series can teach valuable lessons to children about adapting to change, making bonds with friends, and other phony bull. Mr. Kanetkar ruins his ethos right of the bat with his egregious misspelling of "Pokémon." His spelling lacks an accent above the "e," resulting in "Pokemon." Which to me, sounds like "Poke-mon." Pokémon is three syllables. Pronounced "Poke-ay-mon." Not "Poke-mon," which is clearly only two syllables. Further damaging his already pitiful and essentially nonexistent ethos, Mr. Kanetkar flaunts his "high school diploma" and "average GPA" as if those two bits of information made him worth listening to. In fact, they expose him as the immature child that he is. Mr. Kanetkar also peppers his writing with a punctuation usage that would make a poverty-stricken, paraplegic orphan cry tears of profound sadness and abnormal salinity. There are two cases of multiple exclamation points in a row and one outrageous moment where a parenthetical aside includes a period outside of the parenthesis when the question mark inside would have sufficed. It is clear that Mr. Kanetkar is a writer of very low caliber.

(Author's note: I, Alex Liu, have a doctorate from Kennesaw State University. My other honors include being knighted by the Queen of England, winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and being recognized as an honorary member of the Communist Party of China. I am sure that Mr. Kanetkar's ethos pales in comparison.)

Now, for the actual, poorly-constructed argument, or at least what Mr. Kanetkar claims to be an argument. Happiness and bonding with Pokémon is hardly a factor in the game, with only 13 out of over 600 species of Pokémon evolving as a result of happiness. What the games really do is encourage bloodlust within the people who play it. One example is how status changing moves (moves that can poison Pokémon, burn Pokémon, etc.) are almost never taught, not counting attacks that can inflict a status condition. No, Pokémon are only taught moves that inflict damage upon enemy Pokémon in hopes of causing them to faint. Since, in the game, Pokémon are unable to be killed, players can put these virtual beasts of war through as much violence as they wish. This would surely damage the mental well-being of any child.

The second preposterous claim made by Mr. Kanetkar is how Pokémon teaches kids about dealing with change through the strengthening process that the series calls "evolution." It does not. All evolution does is instill in children an unhealthy lust for power. The prime example of this is Magikarp. Magikarp is one of the most useless Pokémon in the game. It does not learn an attack until players train it hard. But enough training eventually allows it to evolve into the vicious, bloodthirsty Gyarados. The evolution gives players more power to devastate opponents with Gyarados's enormous strength. The power that the players wield within the game world translates into a real-world hunger for power.

Mr. Kanetkar closes his article with a statement calling Pokémon a "lifestyle." Perhaps he has a point, which means bad news for the world at large. The embracing of Pokémon as a lifestyle means an embracing of power, the embracing of violence, and the embracing of animal cruelty. The world that Mr. Kanetkar envisions must be prevented at all costs.

Filler Post

Seeing that I need to have this project all finished up by midnight on Tuesday, and noticing that I only need to show Mrs. Smith three blog posts, I've decided that it wouldn't hurt to make one of my posts totally useless filler. This is, after all, a blog. So, like all blogs, I might as well talk about various details about my day as I approach that three-paragraph minimum as fast as possible. Besides, I've already put in some serious thought into the previous three posts, so I should be OK with some random droning for today.

Today is Friday, May 4, 2012. (I am fully aware that all of my blog posts are time-stamped, but hey, anything to take up space. Plus, I get to add this cool parenthetical aside for extra paragraph length.) Not many things worth noting happened today. AP exams start next week, so all of my teachers reviewing previously-learned material. During lunch, some club (I'm assuming that it was the Korean arts club) was doing some sort of demonstration. As usual, no one was paying attention. It's sad that a few posters taped up in the hallways would serve as a much more useful advertising.

In the evening, there was an orchestra concert. Mr. Lawless, the orchestra teacher, held a potluck dinner before the concert.There were many tasty dishes to eat over there, and I had three plates of food. There was a joke awards ceremony later, in which I received the "Most Sarcastic" award. (Albert Shaw got "Most Panda-Like.") Then there was the concert. The concert was really business as usual, with the only difference being that the top orchestra did not play last, since our music was deemed too sad/depressing/serious, and Lawless wanted to end the last concert of the year on a more cheerful note.

Now, seeing that I have three nice, decently-sized paragraphs, I will abruptly end this blog post.

Scribblenauts

Perhaps one of the most entertaining video games you can play right now is Scribblenauts. It's so entertaining that sometimes I steal Albert's iPad during AP Lang just to play it. (Sorry, Mrs. Smith.) The premise is extremely simple: the player is presented with a puzzle and can summon a wide variety of objects in order to solve it. And when I say "wide variety," I mean, "99% of whatever you come up with can be summoned in this game." Would you like to bring in a dinosaur? Type in dinosaur, and you'll get one. Maybe you want a specific dinosaur. Want a stego? Type it in, and you're done. Say you want to be more specific about what the object you want. Later versions of the game allow you to add adjectives for extra amusement.

When I first played a version of the game, I was extremely caught up in seeing what sort of ridiculous things I could make up. Zombie robots. Violent rocks. Cthulhu. I rode on a giant docile dragon wielding a mind control device and fought God. (No offense, Christians.) Then I realized that I hadn't even started the actual game yet. I had already spent tons of time on what turned out to be the start screen.

The puzzles themselves are just fun to play through again and again due to the fact that there are multiple solutions to a problem. For example, one early puzzle instructs the player to summon objects to give to people of varying careers and give them an object that fit into their jobs. For example, a policeman could be give a pair of handcuffs or a gun, while a chef could be given dough or a rolling pin. The sheer flexibility of the game's puzzles makes it very satisfying to play, and recommended for anyone who's interested.

The Chens

I am sure that everyone knows that Frank Chen wins everything. As in, literally everything. I am also sure that everyone knows that his older sister, Sophia Chen, also wins everything. Again, literally everything. We all know that this year's Awards Night was not the end of the Chen clan's winning spree. Tons of other academic institutions across the country generously hand out awards to whoever they deem to be a bright young mind, and you can be sure that the siblings Chen will be awarded them.

So now we have gotten the fact that the Chens win everything out of the way. Knowing that the Chens win everything, we must logically conclude that the Chens never lose. Scary thought, isn't it? To always be outsmarted by a Chen, to always face defeat at the hands of a Chen, to always be crushed soundly by a Chen. You can't win against a Chen. No one can win against a Chen. They never lose.

But then, there's a much more scarier thought. Let's do a quick recap: First, the Chens always win. Following that, the Chens must never lose. Now here's something to ponder about: what would happen if the Chens competed against each other? What would happen if you took two unstoppable forces and unleashed them against each other? Would they cancel each other out. To be honest, I believe that a clash of the Chens would be so disastrous that it would lead to the destruction of life, the world, and maybe even the entire universe as we know it.

So spread the word. Prevent the Chenpocalypse.

Because This is Too Good to Not Share

An Absolutely Sincere Thank-You to Evan Jensen

To kick off the journal project that I have just been dying to do this whole semester, I just want to express my gratitude for Evan Jensen. "Why Evan Jensen?" a most certainly skeptical reader must be thinking right this very second. "What has he done to earn a thank-you from such an esteemed person like Alex Liu?" (And I thank you, my dear readers, for having such a high opinion of me.) I understand this confusion, and I will take the time to outline my reasons for bestowing such a great honor upon Evan.

I wish to thank Evan for his role in bringing about an AP Lang project for the students of Mrs. Smith's class. I must admit, being the good little Asian child I am, I have been yearning for such a project this whole time. When Mrs. Smith informed us about this project, I'm sure that, on the outside, I appeared to be horrified. I am sure that some might have noted my reputation for being lazy and may believe that, at that moment, I was feeling an intense fury and hatred towards Evan and his plea for an AP Lang project. Nonsense, I say. When I heard about the existence of such a project, I experienced a joy of an enormous magnitude.

So thank you, Evan Jensen. Thank you for helping to bring about this AP Lang project for me to do. Thank you for giving me another reason for me to worry about my AP Lang grade a chance to help my AP Lang grade go up. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am so thankful that I have dedicated the very first journal post to this wonderful individual.

Obligatory Post

Because I haven't posted in this thing for three weeks.

This post should suffice.

This is a Reflection

For the most part, I enjoyed reading Huck Finn. I generally like reading books that manage to be funny while having some literary value at the same time. It was far more entertaining than The Scarlet Letter (which I didn't mind as much as other people, although it was a bit overwhelming to read sometimes).

The fact that the satire like Huck Finn is meant to ridicule targets like society or education is appealing to me, because I'm a jerk and enjoy mocking things or reading something that mocks something. Some of my favorite parts of the book include Jim's doubting of King Solomon's wisdom, Emmeline Grangerford's hilariously depressing personality, Buck Grangerford's inability to properly explain the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud, and Tom Sawyer deciding to "let on" that he and Huck had been trying to free Jim for decades, among other events.


I also appreciate how Twain put in effort when making his writing reflect the speech patterns of the novel's characters. Otherwise, the book would have been less interesting to read, although it probably would have been a tiny bit easier to understand what the characters were saying at some points.

TED Talk: Marco Tempest and lies + iPhones

In the TED talk by magician Marco Tempest, he uses three iPhones, taken from three different audience members, and uses them to show the significant role of deception in people’s lives. His argument is that lies make up a large part of any person’s life, whether or not he or she likes it. He also states that while lies can cause pain and confusion, they can also create optimism and happiness.

One of the first thing that Tempest does is quote a seemingly-paradoxical line from another magician about how magic is the only “honest profession,” because magicians all promise to deceive their audience, and always do. This was done to add ethos to his argument, especially since he adds that he believes himself to also be an “honest magician.” Another moment that adds ethos is when Tempest takes a video call from one of the iPhones, telling the person calling him that he’s “stuck in traffic,” which he acknowledges to be clear lie. Other than using honesty to enhance his credibility, Tempest also mentions how ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu and writer Oscar Wilde make similar comments about the importance of lies in war and romance respectively.

Other than ethos, Tempest also utilizes pathos with the imagery he conjures with his iPhones. As he makes his arguments about deception, he simultaneously awes the crowd with the various visual tricks he pulls off, especially when he begins to discuss self-deception. A discussion of gambling addicts is accompanied by the three iPhones taking on the appearance of the slots on a slot machine, while the claim that art is a form of self-deception that “creates real emotion” goes along with the three iPhones looking like a row of piano keys.

Tempest ends his talk by noting how lies become truths by making people feel different emotions, and that surrendering oneself to this self-deception is what allows magic to form.

Post numero uno.

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