Nintendo Slaps The Left-Side Of My Face With Its Now Right Hand

In an unconscionable affront to the left-handed everywhere, in the Wii edition of Twilight Princess, Nintendo switched Link’s sword-hand from his traditional left-hand a more publicly palatable right:

When Nintendo decided to change the controls of Twilight Princess to allow controller movements to swing Link’s sword, it was decided that it would be too strange for gamers to be swinging their right hand in order to make Link swing his left. Thus, they decided to switch Link’s sword arm and make him right handed.

What would be the best way to implement such a change so late in the development process? The most obvious choice would be to flip Link’s character model, but with the rest of the game designed around Link attacking from a southpaw stance that would be sure to change the way at least some of the fights worked. No, the quickest and easiest solution was to simply mirror the entire game!

Famed game developer Shigeru Miyamoto had this to say about the decision: “Although Link is [traditionally] left-handed, at E3 we noticed people seemed to be using the right Wii controller to swing his sword. That’s why we decided to make Link right-handed. The interesting thing is, on the GameCube Link is still left-handed; because of the mirror mode the game map is reversed.”

I’m checking my indignant rage until I see more information (confirmation, more detail), but if it’s true, I’ll reconsider purchasing a Wii at launch. I might wait until the GameCube version comes out.

The Gap Thinks Audrey Hepburn Is A Dancing Whore

Probably, most of my rage should be focused on Path to 9/11, but others seem to have that assholery under control, which leaves me to focus on something truly outrageous – the Gap’s appropriation of Audrey Hepburn.

I saw window clings of Audrey on the windows at the local Gap tonight and was surprised enough to stop, stand, and think “WTF?” to myself. The “hello Audrey” tagline underneath didn’t really explain anything, but I went on my way, bought a new pair of pants (not from Gap, obvs), and forgot about it.

Then I go home and see this:

Using footage from Funny Face set to AC/DC’s “Back In Black”, the commercial treats the late Miss Hepburn like a common whore.

Naturally, Gap is very excited about it:

This week, the skinny black pant is back at Gap with the introduction of a new, groundbreaking campaign featuring original film footage of timeless style icon Audrey Hepburn. The campaign, entitled “Keep it Simple,” is centered on innovative television spots incorporating a memorable scene of Audrey Hepburn dancing in the classic film Funny Face. Celebrating Gap’s re-launch of the perfect black pant, the ads mark Gap’s third and final marketing campaign of the fall season.

“We’re thrilled because this is the first time in more than 12 years that a film clip of Audrey Hepburn has been authorized to endorse a commercial product in North America,” said Kyle Andrew, vice president of Gap Marketing. “This ad is a true testament to timeless style and we couldn’t be more excited to have Audrey Hepburn — the ultimate style icon — represented in our campaign.”

This ad is a true testament to “we couldn’t come up with anything new for our ads with dancing people that we’ve being doing for what, like forever or something? so we’ve moved on to dead people”. It’s awesome because he makes it sound like she willingly signed up for this. “Well, we had to trade a few first-round draft picks, but she’s finally ours!”

And I don’t hate it because of some snobbish elitism about violating art for commercialism. I like commercials. I liked the dancing Gap commercials when they first aired. I hate it because it’s Audrey Hepburn. A woman so elegant that even though I’d normally insert an expletive in the middle of her name (e.g. Dan Fucking Jellison), I can’t. She’s Audrey Hepburn!

She’s like one of the five Good People, ever. To see her image hijacked for a pair of PANTS is too much for my fragile and sensitive soul. It’d be like seeing a commercial with Jesus in a jacket for A&F. Except that while we’ll never know exactly what Jesus looked like, whether it be bearded Caucasian or scruffy Jew, he’d look like a pile of moldy shoe next to Audrey Hepburn.

Somebody’s getting punched over this one. And I’m skipping the face and going right for the crotch.

Jumping In The Shallow End Of The Fray

Andy got yelled at in this post for whining and making fun of cripples, so he made this post.

I won’t cover his hating on Jon Stewart, because he (Andy) is wrong and I (me) told him (still Andy) so before or the wheelchair basketball (other than to say this is how you win at it). And, statistically the chances of me having made fun of wheelchair basketball in the past or doing so in the future are fairly high, so who am I to judge? Wheelchair Jesus? I don’t think so.

This leaves T.A.s. Generalizing always leads to lazy thinking, so I’ll say this: Every T.A. I had teaching a class was an idiot. Like, for serious.

I had one who cried because she thought the class was mean to her. Really, we weren’t. She slacked, we called her on it, and she cried. They didn’t have a check box for that one on the end-of-semester evaluation.

Another wasn’t necessarily a bad guy, he was just, well, limited. And over-sensitive. I called him Mr. Oprah. My thesis paper for the class (Media History) extrapolated that people wanted their media delivered “on demand” (this was previous to “On Demand” becoming a trademark of the Comcast Corporation). He saw it as far-fetched and not based in reality.

The most grievous example, who the sake of anononimity I’ll just call Dumbass Pissbrain (not his real name), I had THREE times. It was horrible.

The absolute worst thing he did was not show up for class. A lot. And not because he didn’t show up for class as much as he didn’t tell us he wasn’t going to show up for class. He taught stupid required courses I hated and had the extreme discourtesy to teach them first thing in the morning. When your afternoon professors are no-shows, it’s happy hour. When you drag yourself out of bed in the morning and Stupid McIdiot didn’t show and you hate him anyway, fuck that.

All he had to do was send out an email to the class that said “no”. Or just to me, I don’t care. As long as I could go back to bed.

He also, like many of my liberal arts teachers, was a leftish nutterang. Like, I could stand up in class and proclaim love for Michael Moore*, and I’d get applause. Conversely, if I maybe mentioned how once I had possibly partially agreed with the gist of something Rush Limbaugh has said, I’d be drawn, quartered, and have to provide an adequate defense as to my actions. Which is silly, because 1) it’s totally biased and 2) agreeing with Rush Limbaugh really is indefensible.

Especially frustrating was the administration’s complete lack of response. I think they were surprised about a student complaining about a professor canceling class, it violated the Natural Order of Things. I complained time after time and they did absolutely nothing. And by “absolutely nothing” I mean they yelled at him and he came into the next class and apologized and swore it wouldn’t happen again. And it didn’t, at least until it did. At that point it was March of my senior year and it was spring and I was about to graduate and there were drink specials to take of advantage of, so I stopped caring.

Plus my complaints were on the record, so if he tried any grade lowering nonsense, I had previous registrations of grievance to pull out against him.

Also, in a related note: College football is meant to be watched in hi-def. If you didn’t just buy an HD set so you can totally speak with authority on this subject, you might as well gouge out your eyes. And fuck everyone who likes Notre Dame. If they win the championship, great. Until then, settle down. We’ll see what happens.

*For the record: I do love Michael Moore. I may not always agree with him, but he’s such a wonderful blend of two of my favorite areas: Muckraking and documentaries. And my politics are just as leftish as many of my professors were, with the primary difference of my not being an insufferable gnueb. I don’t make idiots explain their idiot politics anymore than I ask a puppies to apologize for pissing on the floor. I give it a kick out the door and get on with my life.

Retarded Apples To Retarder Oranges

Dear "Commentators":

Ashlee Simpson is NOT like Milli Vanilli. Milli Vanilli did not sing their own songs. They lip synced, yes, but to other people's voices. That's why their screw-up was a big deal (reletively speaking).

Acting surprised that a teen-pop singer might need some vocal help is just retarded. And the ensuing investigation on her acid reflux and how her story's changed is a ludicrous waste of air time, especially when we have a presidential administration that can't make up their minds on what happened to 300 tons of explosives.

So, to review:

Ashlee Simpson ≠ Milli Vanilli
Lip Syncing = Not a Big Deal
300 Tons of Explosives = ???

Ignorance Is My Pride

Almost forgot about this one…

The local paper runs a section called "Sound Off", where people who can't string enough words together for a letter to the editor call and leave short little uninformed rantings for the paper to use to fill space and piss me off.

One ran in the August 15 edition that reads as follows:

We all know what President Bush has done for our country. Where did John Kerry come from? Whoever heard of him? Not me and I am 82 years old. All the way President Bush! November is your month.

I get willful ignorance, I don't like it, but I can understand some people choose to be retarded. What I don't get it the belligerent ignorance displayed here. "Whoever heard of him? Not me and I am 82-years-old." You can almost picture their rage. "How DARE this guy I've never heard of run against the guy I've only heard of because his dad was president before! Oh gosh is that the news on my TV, quick I better turn it off before I start to know something! Oh, good, it's that nice Bob Barker fellow. Who doesn't he run for president? Ohhh, Plinko!"

Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good.