I was going to continue writing ’bout liberal tears o’er Hairpiece’s victory–god, I still refuse to believe that wasn’t a psychedelic hallucination last night–but lost interest after I literally had to restart my computer ’cause Daily Kos’s website is such utter fucking sluggish trash. Seriously, ¿you truly hope to be for the working class when someone with a Core i5 with 4GB RAM can’t fucking handle your websites? ¿With what kind o’ scripting sludge & multimedia muck did your pretentious clown o’ a web designer clog your website?

(God damn it, now Naked Kapitalism is doing it. I love these dumbass fucking websites that continue to load shit with their god awful scripts e’en after I explicitly click the X that tells them to shut the fuck up & stop loading shit.)

But, anyway, ‘stead I somehow ran into this hilarious article:

In victory for Big Envelope, feds will mail Social Security statements

I love how laissy libs have so li’l self-awareness in their tiny bubble that they think terms like “Big Envelope” sound scary or important @ all.

O, no, now the vile feds are “wasting” 72 million a year on a convenience that, he himself seems to claim, benefits 73% o’ Americans. If this idiot actually knew anything ’bout economics, & didn’t have as his only reference a website that doesn’t e’en work, he’d know that 72 million a year is birdseed considering what the federal government spends yearly &–which is, itself, not that much, compared to most o’ the world.

But then, “Big Envelope” is much easier–ironically ’cause it’s not big @ all–to complain ’bout, ‘specially when one has no true problems in one’s life &, ‘stead, wastes time whining ’bout the most frivolous trifles rather than actual real-world tragedies.

But, O yeah, pretend like you’re truly sticking it to the man, rich guy who does nothing but whine.

Wow. After last year’s amazing failure, I was expecting to write an article making fun o’ Republicans this time, since it’d be a cold day in hell before a living cartoon hairpiece beat a real politician. Clearly I underestimated the Democratic Party’s superpowers @ losing.

& don’t blame me, whiny moderate liberals, ’cause this bitter anarchist nihilist pretentious shitbag did vote & did vote Democrat. ’Specially when you fuckers fucked me out o’ drinking up the delicious tears o’ far-right crazies on Reddit. Now I have to endure their hideous fucking frog face everywhere—seriously, fuck that fucking face, it’s gross. It’s literally the whole reason I voted gainst Hairpiece. & you know that fuckwit Lord Keynes is going to be dancing—well, a’least you finally had to acknowledge that your Post-Keynesian bum-buddy ol’ Steve Keen fucking thinks your stupid immigration beliefs are racist. ¡Ha, ha!

As can be imagined, there’s a lot o’ bemoaning gainst 3rd parties like Jill Stein for their treasonous act o’ running in what’s s’posed to be an open & fair election for being mo’ liked than the people leftists were “s’posed” to vote for, rather than bemoaning an election system that stupidly forced voters to play these cynical strategic games ’stead o’ implementing better election systems.¹ ¿E’er hear Clinton or Obama or any Democratic legislator putting effort into putting that into effect? ¿What ’bout the National Popular Vote act?² If @ all, probably not much. Not much time to fit such silliness in when we have to talk ’bout dire issues voters care so much ’bout, like President Hairpiece’s taxes or 1 o’ the million “scandals” Clinton was s’posedly involved in (¿Why has she not yet admitted to killing Vince Foster?).

Anyway, that’s not what you came here for. ¡You came for the crying! Moderate liberal tears aren’t as tasty as far-right’s, but it’ll do.

Drunken Kos puked out some mindless militaristic drivel that I’ve heard a million times—’cause that’s how oft Democrats fucking fail, that’s why. Look, I’ll lick my wounds (don’t judge me for my fetishes) & I’ll cry in a corner… O wait, that wasn’t in the headline.

Well, I’m not checking anymo’, ’cause Daily Kos like a billion other shitty websites has talking ads trying to sell me skin cream, & it’s interrupting the soothing sorror o’ Alice in Chains.

Meanwhile, The Nation’s is like someone waking up with a hango’er, painfully sober.

538… Hold on. ¿Can we see the the forecast you’ve had up to 12 AM, as I’m writing this?

¿Weren’t you the same people who predicted Obama’s victory in 2012 almost perfectly?

Hell, everyone’s crying so much that e’en the stock market’s moaning. What a bunch o’ commies.

Speaking o’ commie sore losers, look @ this Canadian immigration website closing down. A couple million Americans want to bunk with you for a few years while the disaster’s cleaned up, ¿& you can’t e’en help a homey out, Canada? Such bad neighbors.

Counterpunch probably won’t write anything, since they’re too cool, but I did see some ol’ fuck whine to the US ’bout how he’s staying in Iceland ’cause he doesn’t know anything ’bout these Lady Gaga’s & Kardashians & Super Bowls. I’m not sure why anything thinks anyone cares. I mean, I’m sure some right-wing nuts will froth, but they live for getting their cholesterol high, so that’ll happen either way. ¿Do you truly need a reason to stay in Iceland o’er the US? ¿Have you seen the landscapes they have? Man, fuck Canada & their dumbass mounty hats: Iceland’s where it’s @.

Update:

Ne’ermind, they did, & they said a lot o’ the same things I said ’bout scapegoating… for the 1st paragraph. Then the article veers off into some incoherent bullshit ’bout the Roman Empire & Catholicism. Clearly this is proof that we need a new Lenin–presumably ’cause he rivals Hairpiece in potential for causing political disaster. Ha, ha: keep being irrelevant, guys.

Newsweek’s talking ’bout the most inane shit:

• What’s important to put in your concession speech. You know, in case you happen to become 1 out o’ the 2 people in the world who become finalists in America’s Top Politician.



• You shouldn’t stay up watching election coverage; it may be bad for your health. (Clinton fans don’t need to worry ’bout that; most o’ them’ll probably put a gun in their mouths, anyway, if it’s not done by 1 o’ Hairpiece’s o’erzealous supporters).



• What’s on Clinton’s playlist.



• Some shit ’bout mental heal—god damn, it Newsweek, you’re with Smashing Magazine. ¡If you don’t concede your conspiracy in Spiltscrabblepiecesgate, I’ll lock you up!

What I love most ’bout Newsweek is that they have the balls to ask me for money for a subscription to their shit—¡’cause just look @ this quality content!—while filling their site with ads, embedded videos that automatically play. (¿Remember when ’twas considered a web design truism that sound should ne’er start playing on a website without the user’s explicit authorization? ¿You think I want people round me hearing Hairpiece groan ’bout how Clinton better concede or else coming out o’ my headphones?) Think ’gain, Newsweek.

The New York Times… Hmm… Seems to be complaining ’bout how Hairpiece’s victory will make the US’s foreign policy less crazy. Nothing’s worse than making other countries pay for their own military that they will likely not use.

I did like the question some Indian news executive asked: “If you can’t respect a president, does it also stop the world respecting the American people for voting for a man like this?” If he had to ask that, he clearly hasn’t known the American people much.

But apparently the American ambassador to Germany is e’en mo’ ignorant o’ the American people:

He suggested that Mr. Trump could begin pulling together a “polarized country” with his acceptance speech.

Yeah, I can totally imagine left-leaning—or e’en just centrist—Americans embracing a politician e’en many Republicans despised. No, ’twas his polarization that made him so popular ’mong his target demographic. Democrats might want to remember that if they e’er want to wake the average young person to actually bother to come in to vote.

The New York Times also nicely took the time to publicly shame specifically-named people for not voting, essentially accusing them o’ laziness, e’en though some o’ them mentioned being unable to, ’cause they had to actually work, something New York Times writers have ne’er heard o’. E’en mo’ hilarious, most o’ these people interviewed said they preferred Hairpiece, making it meaningless, anyway. Great journaling, New York Times.

I’m feel a surprising fellowship with Paul Babysitter’s-Club-&-Hotdog-Factories Krugman, who’s gone pure emo:

Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty. The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear.

Now he knows how I feel every day, no matter who’s in power.

Then ’gain, considering what a rich bastard he is, I can’t be too surprised that he doesn’t care.

Douthat isn’t liberal, but he’s whining ’bout Hairpiece’s victory, too. He can also go fuck himself, ’cause he made some hokey comparison ’tween Hairpiece & Napoleon, ’cause when you have nothing substantial to say, hokey metaphors are the goto.

The Daily Beast has an article so smug, it almost makes me mo’ embarassed to be associated with them than if I were associated with someone dumb ‘nough to respond to an election win o’ an oppositional politician with the baby whine, “I hope he fails.” Liberals, this is why you ne’er win elections: nobody likes you smug fuckers.

& Stephen Colbert responding with unfunny jokes. O, wait, he always makes those.

¿So what can we learn from this li’l failure Democrats? Pick candidates leftists actually like. That’s how Obama won when he did. Maybe when you remember that you’ll actually win something for once.

Not to be 1 o’ those obnoxious optimists, like Kos, but there is a bright side to this: one could argue that Democrats’ presidency wins numbed self-critical analysis, e’en in the face o’ Republican victories in the legislature. Indeed, the latter might’ve e’en made them mo’ fearful o’ being too audacious—a self-defeating scheme, it turns out. Now they have no ’scuse: they played the most straight, “solid” candidate gainst a complete wacko & lost all branches. E’en their thick heads can’t miss the message: go extreme, or don’t bother going @ all.

O, ¿who am I kidding? Most Americans are probably just going to care mo’ ’bout which Saturday Night Live cast member will parody Hairpiece than what the actual outcome will be.

Man, fuck this noise. I’m going back to nostalgic video games & pretty trees.

Despite the “Sim” name, this wasn’t created by Maxis, but by Yoot Saito, a game developer also responsible for Seaman & Ōdama. & Maxis just bought to rights to publish it. Yoot later released an obscure sequel called Yoot Tower, & much later a Game Boy Advance remake simply called The Tower SP, published by none other than Sega, & a DS remake called The Tower DS, published some nobodies named DigiToys. Judging by the lack o’ a page for the DS remake on Wikipedia or GameFAQs, it seems nobody gives a shit ’bout it–I ne’er heard o’ it till just recently. But I did play the GBA remake a li’l, & a’least took a longer look @ Yoot Tower, which is much mo’ well-known–though not as much as Sim Tower.

Anyway, this is “a nostalgic look,” not “a historical look,” so I will continue to call it “Sim Tower,” since that was the form I played when I was young.

Sim Tower is mixed quality: while it has these pieces that fill me with immense nostalgic warmth, that’s usually mixed in with a lot o’ repetitive plopping down o’ rows o’ offices & apartments, or, god help me, having to manually adjust the rent o’ each place ’cause the tenants left in droves o’er high prices & have left me in the red.

The game starts mediocre & gradually gives you middlingly interesting toys with which to work, but this part has such easy goals & goes by quickly ‘nough that it doesn’t take long to get to 3 stars, where the game gives you all the cool shit, including the movie theater, the dance hall, the garbage disposal, & the parking lot. I don’t know why, but I just always found this stuff cool as a kid, e’en though from the player’s point o’ view, they might as well just be extra pictures to add to the mass o’ gray office spaces & peach apartment rooms. ¿Did choosing ‘tween classic & modern movies in the cinema e’er matter? ¿Who cares? ‘Twas fun to do it, anyway.

Then came 4 stars, & all you got was some lame metro station till you reached a much higher population than demanded before. Best o’ all, due to how the metro stations & security rooms were programmed, you could completely fuck yourself if you built a security station too low, since you couldn’t bulldoze a security station & couldn’t build a metro station ‘bove any other structure, & need to build a metro station to pass 4 stars. This actually happened to me once when I was young, & boy was it a delight.

I actually ne’er reached 5 stars nor the 100th floor, & I’ll ne’er try, ’cause adults don’t have that time anymo’. I did once reach up to 80 floors, though. Don’t remember whether that save ended ’cause I fucked something up with no way to fix it or if I just lost that save somehow. I certainly don’t have it anymo’.

Honestly, Sim Tower‘s true value to me is simply its aesthetics. I don’t know why, but there’s something endearing ’bout the pseudorealistic—& yet quite flat & abstract—graphics o’ all those offices & apartments & those lobbies with the tiny sofas full o’ tiny abstract people. & then you’d get to see the dance hall light up or see all the different designs for the fast food restaurants or all the li’l movies that play on the tiny cinema or the garbage place fill up with garbage. It reminds me o’ some toy I had a lot o’ fondness for as a kid, which looked like a pseudorealistic fast food restaurant. I wrote a poem ’bout that toy mo’ than a year ago & just realized that I ne’er bothered to post it.

Picture taken o’ a tower save from David Wolever, since fuck if I have the time to build a tower worth screencapping.

¡& then there’s the sounds! I say “sounds,” ’cause the game didn’t have what most would call music, but had a collection o’ ambient sounds that were as pleasing to hear as music, & much mo’ fitting for this game. Listening to this is like an injection o’ unfiltered nostalgia for me.

Also, Santa would fly by on the last day o’ the last quarter with a jingling sled & some terrorist would threaten to blow up parts o’ your tower if you didn’t pay him. It’s cool details like these that made this game memorable, e’en if it didn’t have the most entertaining gameplay.

If one acknowledges the existence o’ imbalanced government intervention o’ the past, then one has no logical reason to demand a lack o’ government intervention in the present.

The key question: ¿Does the market by itself adjust income distribution gainst government meddling? If yes, then government meddling should be no problem, since the market will just readjust as if it ne’er existed. If no, then the existence o’ government intervention can’t be ignored–including that which existed in the past.

But, ‘course, we all know that government meddling has existed in the past–laissy libs bitch ’bout it all the time. & yet, if that’s true, then its effects must still be present, since the market doesn’t right itself gainst government meddling; & therefore, settling for a “pure” market that only allows government to maintain current property powers will maintain the distribution o’ property powers skewed by past government intervention.

In short: Laissez-faire in the present maintains the government intervention o’ the past.

Let’s anticipate a few attacks gainst this point: that it focuses on income distribution.

Laissez-faire fans, both fundamentalist & moderate, oft o’erlook the importance o’ income distribution, largely based on frivolous reasons: usually either their assumption that it isn’t important or their view that it can’t be scientifically qualified. People who hold either (or both) views, prefer to focus on “efficiency.”

1st, I should point out that my main focus is not on trying to keep my examinations as “pure” as possible, or anything, but simply how it affects people & their abilities or lack o’ abilities to fulfill their goals. Unlike, say, Paul Samuelson, I don’t care ’bout economics as some sociopathic “puzzle” wherein people are mere abstract pieces to be manipulated, but as a mere tool to serve people, however it may do so. Thus, I find the argument that we can ignore any economic issue simply ’cause there’s no way to analyze it in a purely positivist way faulty: whether or not we can doesn’t change whether or not it’s important.

& part o’ this is the fact that income distribution is the core goal o’ society, not efficiency. Individuals care not ’bout how much value is created within society as a whole,–& indeed, ironically thanks to subjective value, that shouldn’t e’en make any sense, since there exists no value outside o’ individual conscience–but how much value they get. Efficiency is useless if all o’ its value goes to someone else; meanwhile, e’en if a society creates nothing new, the distribution o’ that which is still remaining is still o’ importance.

Mo’ importantly, as stated in ‘nother article, efficiency relies on income distribution, which means that e’en if a lack o’ government intervention made the economy mo’ “efficient” e’en after government intervention in the past, this would still be offset by the faults in the income distribution caused by that past government intervention. Thus, the point still stands, e’en in regards to “efficiency.”

Accompanying music

Only in the night do I feel full,

where the darkness cuts the light stark clear.

Sparked awake by th’sugar treats:

jangling, cooing, thumping melodies.

* * *

Accompanying music

But then the moon must always fall,

revealing all the messiness.

Warped from the ghost with th’world on strings

to choke on millions of inhuman human abstract things.

Falling wind…
weak leaves shake on ends
bright & dim.

“Surrealism,” like many art terms, has many vague definitions, so I’ll make up my own & stick to it throughout. If you, the reader, prefer to think o’ “surrealism” as something else, then feel free to replace that word with something else. It’s the concept that’s important.

To me, surrealism is something absurd, but still attached to reality in some way—only twisted to the point that it seems random, but makes sense if one digs into them. This is as opposed to what is commonly called absurdism, which was usually just purely arbitrary for the sake o’ arbitrary. A common way to make it in the past was to use dreams as inspiration, but I’d argue that the most common method is to mix concepts A & C—or D & so on—when there are connections ‘tween A & B & B & C, but otherwise no connections ‘tween A & C—making them seemingly irrelevant, & thus random, but have relevance if followed down the pipe.

The Super Mario Bros. series, I think, exemplifies this perfectly, creating a rich collection o’ elements somehow both seemingly arbitrary & fitting. It’s amazing the origins o’ many o’ its strangeness—& almost all o’ its strangeness has some obscure origin.

Mario & Luigi themselves are a perfect example. While many mascots, like Sonic, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Bubsy, & so on, were created mostly by marketing teams, Mario & Luigi might be some o’ the most antimarketing mascots e’er created. Only the most insane marketing team would decide that the mascots for a multimillion-$ industry aimed @ kids & young adults should be 2 Italian plumbers. ¿What demographics could that possibly be aimed for? But, ‘course, they weren’t aimed @ any particular demographics, as any good art isn’t, but is based on an amazing collection o’ happenstance history & technology.

¿Why are they Italian plumbers? ‘Cause Nintendo’s American landlord looked sort o’ like Mario—then called Jumpman. So they decided to name their character after him & give him what they probably presumed was his nationality, given that Mario is a common Italian name. Since Luigi is ‘nother common Italian name, they gave that to his brother.

¿But why did Mario look the way he did? ¡All technology! Specifically, the graphical limitations o’ ol’ games: Mario’s o’eralls were so it’d be easy to pick out his arms from his clothing; his moustache was so his nose could be picked out from the rest o’ his face; his hat was designed to avoid the trouble o’ animating hair as the character moved.

Luigi, too, was an element o’ graphical limitations—& a common 1, making it fitting that the emblems o’ video games as a whole would be its most iconic example. To save on memory & space, games would oft reuse graphics, but merely apply different palettes. Thus, an easy way to have a 2nd player was to just take the 1st player & give it a different palette. But the creators for the Super Mario series were imaginative ‘nough to create a rationale: these 2 were twin bros., hence why they look similar.

¿Why were the plumbers? Simple ’cause o’ 1 game, Mario Bros., whose main plot excuse was the 2 cleaning sewers o’ vicious enemies—1 out o’ many ho-hum blue-collar jobs the Mario Bros. had. But this 1, for some reason, stuck beyond this game, e’en after it stopped being relevant. Thus, e’en though it made sense for them to travel through pipes while still cleaning urban sewers, they still travel through pipes, e’en in the fantasy world o’ the Mushroom Kingdom, despite later games focusing mo’ on saving medieval princesses while traveling through idyllic acres. Thus we have this otherwise jarring mix o’ scenes you’d expect in The Lord of the Rings & a sewer system you’d expect to see in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.

Many o’ the enemies have their origins in random real-life events:

Doglike Chain Chomps (in Japan called “Wanwan,” the Japanese onomatopoeia for barking) are inspired by Miyamoto’s fear o’ a chained-up dog when he was young.

On-&-off Boos¹ were inspired by a designer’s wife, who was usually calm & polite, but once blew up @ her husband for working too late.

Goombas’ Japanese name, “Kuribō,” which means “chestnut people,” comes purely from the fact that 1 o’ the designers thought they looked mo’ like chestnuts than mushrooms, like they were s’posed to be.

Some elements were simple allusions stretched out. Miyamoto took a li’l scene in Alice in Wonderland involving Alice eating a mushroom to grow & shrink & made a whole world out o’ it. & then mixed that with the aforementioned infested sewers. & yet, ‘gain, it all feels natural.

& for westerners, that’s the most recognizable. Most allusions are to Japanese myths that most westerners only know ’bout due Super Mario games, such as the way leaves transform Mario & Luigi into tanuki².

‘Course, some aspects o’ the Mario series seemed to come from nowhere @ all. I don’t think there was e’er an explanation given for the existence o’ fire-spewing flowers, bouncing stars that make one flash & kill one’s enemies by touch, or feathers that make them spontaneously gain capes (to be fair, this last 1 does have the association ‘tween feathers & flight & capes & flight–¡that A & C connected through B ‘gain!).

¿& why’s everything have a face, including the hills & clouds?

Footnotes:

[1] You could say they’re boolean, hur hur hur. Nobody’s made that joke before.

[2] A common complaint gainst newer Mario games that bring back “Tanooki” Mario & Luigi, like Super Mario 3D Land, is that they get it “wrong”; the leaf’s s’posed to turn them into raccoons, while the suit turns them into the “tanooki” form. Actually, this is only what the English translation o’ Super Mario Bros. 3 claimed–& we know how accurate translations were in the 90s. In the original Japanese version, “Raccoon Mario” was simply called “Tail Mario.” Mo’ importantly, the actual myths revolve round leaves being used by tanuki for their shapeshifting powers, not raccoons. It’s usually English translations that turn “tanuki” into “raccoon,” since Americans are familiar with raccoons, that being a species native to North America, while till recently hardly any English-speaking person had e’er heard o’ “tanuki”–save maybe those who read Andrew Lang’s translations o’ Japanese mythology. Contrariwise, raccoons only entered Japan recently,–inspired by western media–& have not nearly the cultural importance as tanuki.

In short, ironically “Raccoon Mario” is almost certainly not the “pure” version o’ the powerup they get ‘pon getting the leaf, but a name created by a somewhat inaccurate (to be fair, 1 that sacrificed accuracy for the sake o’ comprehensibility) translation that was not the original intention @ all. If anything, Super Mario 3D Land‘s new version is mo’ accurate to the myths on which it’s based.

So there. Super Mario 3D Land is relieved o’ any guilt for that made-up crime, & is now stuck with just the crimes o’ being bland, derivative, & repetitive.