Election coverage is infuriating.

Once again the Presidential Election is being boiled down to image and soundbites rather than each candidates stance on the issues. The pattern so far in this election seems to be Clinton attacking Obama over a slight non-issue while Obama valiantly and effectively defends himself while keeping the focus on his stances. For example, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy has been brought up constantly, while I haven't seen a single mention of Geraldine Ferraro in weeks (Google them if you don't get the reference). Case in point, I haven't read a single article or seen a single news report on the election in the past few days that hasn't mentioned the word "bitter."

If you're not up on the story, Obama made this comment at a fundraiser in reference to working-class citizens in small towns who have lost their jobs:

"...it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Obama has been criticized for this statement, being called anti-religion, anti-firearms and elitist. But consider the scenario: You live in a small community with maybe one or two large employers, and due to the struggling economy they start laying people off. In times of crisis people band together, and usually the biggest rallying point in any community is the church. Furthermore, downsizing is often blamed on outsourcing, hence the resentment towards the outside. Obama makes a valid point, although it is poorly worded; he even admits that he could have phrased the comment better.

The Clinton campaign, of course, saw this as another chance to attack Obama, and the media has not shut up about it since. Clinton called the comment "elitist, out of touch and frankly, patronizing." She has even put out an ad attacking Obama over it. Clinton, the woman who put on a faux Southern accent when talking to voters in the south, frequently touts her supposed middle class childhood and apparent love of guns and beer to appeal to middle class voters (incidentially, Clinton and Obamas stance on gun control are almost exactly the same), and lied about her experiences in the Middle East to get sympathy votes called a one-off comment by Obama patronizing.

The "Elitist" tag is annoying in and of itself and something I might get into in another post, but the big problem I have with the whole issue is how much coverage the comment has been getting. It's one statement out of many from all sides, and the only reason it stands out is because it could be construed as an attack on small town America, which is gold for sensationalist news media. Consider some of the headlines: "Obama's "Bitter" Comments a Belittling Blunder", "'Bitter' quote more harmful than Wright?", "Obama: God, guns are only refuge of bitter Pennsylvanians."

There has been hundreds of reports on it, yet polls have shown that there has been no significant change in support for Obama because of it. In fact, the statement has become a rallying point for certain bitter voters. As much as Clinton might have been looking for a bump from this, it's not taking, most likely because nobody fucking cares.

So why all the coverage? Why the endless analysis? Why all the articles asking "Can Obama recover from 'bitter' flap"? Does this even deserve a "-gate"?

Honestly.

-Niraj
Those Logistical Gophers

Hey everybody, Titties and Booze! Now that I have your attention, TLG Media has just launched it's new series, Space Alligator! Check it out here!

Me and Chris have been pooling our minds and resources together for a while to prepare this. What we've come up with is a unique blend of subtle yet complex humor that has never been seen in a web series before. I honestly believe that we're going to revolutionize comedy with this series. In fact, we're so devoted to it that we've decided to stop production on all our other projects to focus all our efforts on Space Alligator.

So go watch it already! And be sure to check for episode 2, coming soon from TLG Media!

-Niraj
Tenderly Lacking Gloss

This is a joke, we're fully aware of how stupid it is.

Well, to the six or seven people who might care, Hart IV, the one with Big D and the Kids Table (!), isn't done yet, nor do I have any idea when it will be done. I'll try to make an announcement of some sort when it's just about ready.

-Niraj
Too Lazy Goddamnit

"The North American Video Game Crash" refers to a period from 1983 to 1986 when nobody gave a flying fuck about video games, leading to the industry practically imploding. The main cause of the crash was an over-saturated market in a time of relatively little demand. The video game industry eventually rebounded in 1986 after the success of the NES and became the hulking behemoth it is today. It was definitely a shit time for video games, but it's ridiculous to think there will be another crash any time soon.

Then again, look at video games now and you might see history repeating itself. The decrease in demand for games in 1983 is often blamed on ET and Pacman for the Atari 2600, a game based on a popular license and a port to a home system respectively, both of which are widely regarded as absolute shit. Right now the market is overwhelmed by games based on asinine licenses (pretty much every blockbuster movie gets its own tie-in game, not to mention games based on TV Shows, Toys, cartoons, classic movies etc.) and sub-par ports (basically every port to the Wii). The quality of these games tend to range from "mediocre" to "affront to humanity": For fucks sake, why was Napoleon Dynamite: The Game even allowed to see the light of day?

Of course, there were many more reasons for the crash:

-Developers with no idea what they were doing: Activision, the first third party game developer, came out quite well, mostly because it consisted of experienced ex-Atari programmers who knew what the fuck they were doing. Other companies tried to jump into the industry, ranging from tech companies such as Radio Shack and Texas Instruments (who had the technical knowledge to produce games but lacked the game-design experience to make them captivating or innovative) to companies from entirely unrelated industries (the most notorious example being Quaker Oats: I shouldn't even have to elaborate on why they failed). With this in mind, is the failure of the Phillips CD-i or the Phantom console really all that surprising?

-Corporate Arrogance: Inventing and accounting for 2/3rds of a multi-billion dollar industry will naturally lead to some corporate hubris, and in the case of ET, Pac-Man and several other games the Atari higher-ups felt it necessary to produce more cartridges than consoles sold. There's no way to convince anyone that this is a good business move, but people would be so crazy for these games that they would shell out the extra cash for multiple copies, right? Pretty much every hardcore gamer knows the story of the New Mexico landfill where the thousands of unwanted cartridges were dumped. These days, Sony espousing the awesomeness of the PS3 can be somewhat annoying, but it comes with the added bonus of goddamn fanboys too.

Popular Aversion to Video Games: In 1983 video games were widely considered at best to be toys for children and pointless wastes of time, and at worst to be corrupting the youth of America and retardedly stupid wastes of time. 25 years later video games are widely considered at best to be toys for children and pointless wastes of time, and at worst to be corrupting the youth of America and retardedly stupid wastes of time. In the past, gamers were stereotyped as either kids or basement dwelling nerds. Although this image has vastly improved in recent years, how many times have you seen a politician try to curry favor by attacking those video games that are causing all those kids to go on shooting rampages, or a news report about the seX-Box 360 and Pornstation Portable that can access the Internet and play videos and thus ACTIVELY ENCOURAGE CHILDREN TO WATCH THE PORNOGRAPHY?

Among others.

I was born in 1986 when the NES was becoming popular, and my first gaming memory was playing Sonic the Hedgehog on my cousins Genesis when I was about 5. I grew up with video games and for me there was never a time where the industry was in danger of collapsing. I don't want to come off as overly critical or against gaming. Sure, there's plenty of annoying things about video games today (fanboys, sequelitis, rip-offs and cliches, the Spike TV Video Game Awards etc.) but the industry is only improving. Technical presentation FAR outweighs demand; Wii games, with lesser graphic capabilities, often exceed the popularity of graphically astonishing games like Crysis, which some will not have a PC powerful enough to run it properly for another couple years. By contrast, people were already fed up the Atari 2600s and Intellivision's primitive technology in 1982 but would have to wait another 4 years for something better. If you grew up with parents who couldn't see the appeal or wrap their heads around Sonic the Hedgehogs control scheme you would probably appreciate just how much casual gaming and the Wii have increased the accessibility of gaming. And sure the MTV 360 launch was embarrassingly juvenile and had less to do with video games than an episode of TRL, but I think "annoying teenager" is a step up from "basement dwelling man-child" as far as the perception of gamers goes.

Most people who were kids when video games emerged are now adults starting their own families, so public perception of games and their effects on children will only improve as time goes on. Even movies were considered a low form of entertainment until nearly half a century after their invention, when they were finally widely appreciated as a form of art on par with other mediums, and even then it was hotly contested. So remember, every time you see some ignorant jerk making false claims and vague generalizations about games and gamers on Fox News, things could be much, much worse.

-Niraj
The Legion Grows!

Sometimes I get stuck on a small issue while working on a project and I can't move on until it gets solved. This process generally involves a few hours of drinking heavily and yelling at my computer while I try to figure out what the fuck is going wrong, followed by several hours of drinking heavily and yelling at my computer when I figure out that the solution was mind-numbingly simple and that I must be retarded for not figuring it out sooner.

This particular example involves using dynamic text and a layer mask, something I've never had to do before in flash but is pretty simple in theory. The application takes in some text from an XML file and
uses a layer mask to make a fancy ass animated text effect. This works in theory and with static text, yet when I add the layer mask to dynamic text, the text does not appear, ever. Of course I didn't figure out that it was the mask causing the problem in the first place, so I spent a while working on that. Furthermore, when I found out that is was, in face, the mask causing the problem, it STILL didn't work when I removed the mask layer from the movie clip and exported it again.

A couple minutes online brought me to an article telling me that using dynamic text with a mask layer does not work, no matter what, and there's a perfectly good reason for it but we can't tell you and also fuck you for not knowing dumbass. And of course there's a retardedly easy way around it; instead of using a mask layer, make a movieclip you want to use as the mask and the setMask function:

movieclip_mc.setMask(mask_mc);

This does the same thing without requiring a mask layer or fucking up the text box (this works in AS2, not sure how it's done in AS3 but the application is in AS2 so whatever) and is incredibly easy to implement. Of course now I have to remake the object and reanimate it to accommodate the function, and I've wasted a ton of time getting this far.

The thing is, I'm doing this as part of a freelance job so it takes priority over things I'd rather be doing (like, say, working on our next animation), so when little things like this prolong the job, it's just infuriating.

TL;DR: GODDAMN FLASH! NIRAJ ANGRY AND SOMEWHAT TIPSY!

In other news, I FINALLY saw Robocop. It is awesome and I feel deprived for not having seen it earlier. And yet I've seen Demolition Man more times than I care to admit.

In other other news, I love hoppy beer so I often pick up IPAs. Recently I stumbled across Ruination IPA from Stone Brewing. One of the things I love about Stone is that the labels on their bottles call you a stupid fag bitch pussy if you don't like them, or if you do or whatever shut up fuck you. Also, their beer is fucking delicious. So for shits and giggles I sent them this email:

Dear Stone Brewing Company,

I wish to register a complaint with your Ruination IPA. I recently purchased and consumed a bottle fully expecting it to ruin me. While it was incredibly delicious, it completely failed. Rather than make me sloppy and inarticulate as I had hoped, it instead made me charming and eloquent, as evidenced by the four (non-fake) phone numbers I received from women that night. Would this have been possible if I were, in fact, ruined? Absolutely not. I believe this is a BLATANT case of false advertising. As recourse, I am requesting a case of Ruination IPA, which I will consume until I am, in fact, ruinated, as I had been promised. Also a T-Shirt.

Although I fully support your company, I see this as a slap in the face to annoying drunks worldwide. I hope you see fit to correct this oversight and ruin me as you had promised. Thank you for your time.
-Niraj
TLG Media

I wasn't really expecting anything, but they were cool enough to get back to me with this:

Greetings, Niraj-

First of all, please allow me to congratulate you on your extraordinary powers of animal magnetism. As much as we would like to claim credit for making you irresistibly charming to fellow bar patrons, we must give commendations where they are due. It's all you, pal. Which is not to say that Stone Ruination IPA was absent from the equation that night. Certainly not. In fact, I've received numerous letters from fans in recent months claiming to have had, shall we say unusually fulfilling "social interactions" after imbibing our brews. I would suggest that this is due to the inordinate amount of hops with which we brew our beers, including Stone Ruination IPA. Historically, hops have been used for a variety of pharmacological applications, among them, as a relaxant and aphrodisiac. These effects were noted by the anti-fun loving 12th century nun, Hildegard of Bingen, and gave her serious concern over the use of hops in beer. And no wonder. Your charismatic aura that evening is proof positive of their power. It should therefore come as no surprise that the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder christened the hop plant (Humulus lupulus) "wolf among the weeds" nearly 2,000 years ago.

But I digress. Now, let's take a look at your allegation regarding "false advertising". You will note, upon close re-examination of the Stone Ruination IPA bottle label, that the intended effect is not one of "sloppy and inarticulate" foolishness. Rather, the brew is promised to wreak its "ruinous effect" upon one's palate, not his or her social skills. Further, once so ruined, it is likely that the drinker will never again settle for a lesser beer. It was perhaps this enlightened state of raised standards that also impressed the ladies that night. Therefore, Niraj, if you are indeed actually disappointed that you did not find yourself sloshing about unintelligibly like a lobotomized chimp that evening, we apologize for not meeting your expectations. You must understand however, that no such guarantee is made by Stone Brewing Co. We leave that to the folks cranking out 18 packs of lite beer and the makers of fortified wines.

I would suggest that, given your success with the opposite sex that evening, you have been already adequately compensated for your dashed expectations of blathering idiocy. However, if you are still interested in acquiring more beer and shwag, you are more than welcome to visit us at the brewery at your earliest convenience (http://www.stonebrew.com/visit/). We look forward to seeing you soon. Cheers!

Yours in Arrogance,

ken

Well, I laughed.

-Niraj
Those Lousy Goats!

ps Be my MySpace Comedy friend! Or not. Whatever.

Love, Stephen Colbert

We posted a trailer for our upcoming Harts Valentine IV, with special guest stars Big D and the Kids Table! Check it out already!

I saw a commercial today for freecreditreport.com. In it, a guy was singing about how he married his girlfriend, but then it turned out she had bad credit. So now they have to live in her parents basement while they try to pay off the credit card companies. And then he laments that if only had checked freecreditreport.com, he would have known, and then he'd be "A happy bachelor with a dog and a yard." So basically, freecreditreport.com wants you to spy on your girlfriend credit rating, and dump her if it's too low.

FreeCreditReport.com: Judge people based on their finances. Always!

-Niraj
Torgo Loves Gifts

Hi Erin,

I am Peggy. I got herpes during the Thanksgiving break. So my face looks not good. I am afraid infecting you and others that is why I can not go to school. I am so sad that I will miss the Career Day. I am sorry for absence.

Bests,
Peggy

This idea has been simmering in the collective thoughts of the TLG crew for some time now, and last night was our first opportunity to test out our patented, sure-fire-kill-you-dead drinking game for "The Wicker Man".

Most importantly, you need a copy of the 2006 version of The Wicker Man, starring today's hottest bad-movie beacon, Nicolas Cage. You can play with either the theatrical version or the director's cut, the latter of which being the recommended simply because the movie's concluding ten minutes consists of almost continuous drinking.

We split the rules into two different games based on skill level. Be warned: you may be required to drink more than a twelve-pack, so choose your alcohol of choice wisely. A near-beer will be suitable to get terribly shitfaced in the span of ninety minutes.

THE WICKER MAN DRINKING GAME
NOVICE RULES
Take a drink every time the following happens:
1. Nic Cage pops pills.
2. Nic Cage strikes anything with intent to damage (this includes people also).
3. Willow (the wife) fails to complete a sentence.

INSANITY RULES
These rules are entirely subjective, so the easiest way to determine when to take a drink is by group concensus.
1. Nic Cage raises his voice.
2. Nic Cage makes an unreasonable demand.
3. Nic Cage fails at anything. (There are scenes where all three of these will occur at once)
BONUS! Also include novice rules.

FUN ADDITIONAL RULES!
Feel free to add these into your game, they happen quite frequently throughout the movie.
- Anything gets hit by a truck.
- Nic Cage stares at anything of little to no importance.
- Nic Cage fails to make a reaction.
- Anytime someone says any variation of the word "burn".

Drink responsibly.

-Chris
Totally Luminescent Gauchos

TLG Media, CU Studios, and Wogoat are featured talent on JustForLaughs.com!

I'm stoked to think that someone thinks that TLG Media has talent, let alone enough to want to feature it. On top of that, it's Just For Laughs, Canadas BIGGEST comedy festival. Plus, being considered on a level close to College University or Wogoat is an accomplishment in and of itself. Hell yeah!

-Niraj
Tom Likes Guys

P.S. YouTube LOL