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.