(no subject)

Overslept this morning, so was an hour late to work - but work was understanding and told me I could blame it on the trains which were running 20 minutes to an hour late any how. Plus, I'd been a good employee, never late, on-time, and not complaining. Also responsive. See? Good helps.

Embroiled in book. I wouldn't say it's a fantastic book or anything. Unlikely to find it on any course list or winning any awards. But it is enjoyable, holds my attention, makes me smile and laugh, and I love the characters. Kim Harrison sort of is the female version of Jim Butcher, and Rachel Morgan the female version of Harry Dresden. Granted Butcher is unfortunately a much better and far more skilled writer, technically speaking - both in his use of language and plotting. I haven't found a genre writer in the urban noir horror fantasy mystery genre that matches Butcher's style as of yet. Harrison comes the closest.

Gee, we live in a sexist, chauvinistic and at times borderline misogynistic culture, don't we? I try to ignore it - then I go online and play a video game and it whomps me in the face. Or rent a movie. Or watch a tv show. Or read a book. OR listen to a song. Or watch an Awards Show Telecast (doesn't really matter which one). Ugh. I hate being a second-class citizen. Men aren't better than women. Sorry, no. Don't buy it. (Nor are women better than men for that matter. We're equal. There's no better gender. Also there's transgender, and aesexual in there too - who are treated as if they are non-existent. We can't wrap our brains around it? It don't exist. Sigh.). Outside of just about every Oscar nominated film - thrusting this message home (granted I haven't seen all of them, but the recaps and summaries of all of the films nominated = sexism, or male chauvinism, or misogyny on some level.), we also have the Bunny video game that I played this weekend - where you go to a Buffy island and plant trees and things, but you the KING Bunny is clearly male and you are collecting a harem of female bunnies. They asked for feedback and I wrote : "highly offensive game and sexist to the extreme, where all the players can only be the male King Bunny." (Considering its target audience is most likely women, this is probably not the smartest marketing approach on the planet. I say probably, because the sexism, male chauvinism, and misogyny in our culture is so ingrained in us that women often feel it towards themselves and other women. I notice it when women go on about how they hate women and like men better, because women are sooo catty. (Actually men can be too just in a different way, you'd know this if you actually worked with a lot of men on a daily basis. The difference between the genders isn't as great as people like to think - we realize this as we get older.)) Bunny Island Game (I don't remember the name of it) isn't the only game that is like this - we got the gender specific Diner Dash, Make-Over Boutigue, Joya's Fashion Show, and there's Echo Bazarre - where you only get to flirt with well women. (So it's basically for heterosexual men and lesbians - which isn't too bad. At least you can be a female player in it - but it's clearly a game written by men or for men (male pronouns throughout), yet targeted to women. This is true of alarming number of games. Explaining why I don't like them? And why a lot of women don't play them? Options too limiting?

Will say this for the information age - you can't hide the fact that you are a jerk as easily as you used to. Granted you can say whatever you please online, but you also have to deal with the consequences. And if you are a nasty dictator like Quaddafie (whose name I can't spell and I'm too lazy to look up) in Libya, then the world is going to know what you are doing and try to stop you. Because it's a lot harder to ignore nasty dictators when you are plummeted with news reports from 1000s of sources on a daily basis about what they are doing. (We can thank Facebook and Twitter for this, along with LJ, Blogger, and other interactive communities). Nor can you hide misogamy (not to be confused with masochism - although I guess they do sound the same - can be a very funny disagreement if you do), sexism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc so easily - people will call you on it. And they will critique and make known they observations of it existing in video games, music, film and entertainment - faster and in a way that effects the success of film, tv shows, music, books, video games - etc. No wonder China is terrified of the internet and keeps attempting to control or block it. It is transforming our cultural identity and making the world an increasingly small place. We can talk instantly with people a world away. I find that really cool at times and incredibly awesome. It blows my mind that after I post this - people in 20 different countries, speaking 10 different languages could read it and respond. And I have no idea what they will think of it, if it will piss them off, make them cheer, or leave them ambivalent.

Blogging can be a scary thing - even if you do it under a psuedonyme. It's not like writing a letter to a friend. It's like writing one to a million invisible people half of whose names you don't know and not knowing if any of them read or saw it. Which may explain why it's so highly addictive.