Steam Marketplace and Authenticator: The End of Fast Steambucks

In the past, I had written a little about the decline of the Steam Sale as related (at least in part) to the availability of 'free money' (more of a working discount system) via the Steam Marketplace, where users of the service could sell digital tchotchkes for pennies or dollars (as market forces would dictate). Very low-priced games stopped appearing in sales, prizes stopped appearing, and discounts became pretty shallow, predictable, and unexciting. The high point of the 2011 Christmas Sale would never again be seen, and the blame is mostly on predatory users that couldn't leave a nice thing alone without trying to break it. This attitude, unsurprisingly, caused a lot of problems in the marketplace. Time passed. Inundated with security breaches, lost accounts, trading skullduggery, and service tickets, Valve decided to make their product's product marketplace more secure. Ok...

But it's so god damn annoying. Let me explain. I'll do my best. In the old days of Steam Marketplace, you logged into the service, checked your inventory, and listed an item at a value you set, and it was instantly put up for trade. If your price was a bit lower than the average asking price a bot would buy it almost as soon as you listed it, you would have your 6 cents or 15 cents or 10 dollars. You could trade immediately and use the money immediately - good for making quick money for a sale item when you didn't want to use your credit card. It was pretty simple. It worked. And I made almost a dozen dollars from it, which I used to buy several games, and I liked it. I didn't use it often, but every now and then I checked into the marketplace, and if I saw a good margin on an item I would sell it, and during sales I would buy a cheap game, get the cards, and make a tidy 1 cent profit or whatever, and realized that it didn't matter much. Basically the scheme worked because the gains made from trading went into your Steam Wallet as actual currency. I like to call it Steambucks.  [ I have used Steam for nearly 12 years and I have never put actual money into my Steam Wallet, because that's so insane that I can't understand why someone would do it. It's essentially a feature to give money to your kids, because no other sane person would take real money and let it sit on Steam. The crux of this problem is because accounts with Fat Steam Wallets were getting ganked like crazy. ]

As anybody who has even a remote understanding of the internet will understand: this simple and effective system turned into a huge problem and led to many unfortunate people getting ripped off and targeted by scammers and the whole fucking thing became such a nightmare for Valve that they introduced a phone app and multiple layers of security so that people would stop bothering them and stop (Valve hoped) being so goddamn stupid. Well that was all fine and good. You could use the mobile app or not, and trading went on as usual for a while.

The whole thing came to a head earlier this week? Last week? I don't trade much, but sometime in the last two months it became essentially mandatory to use the Steam Mobile App to authenticate the trade or else suffer a 15 day hold on any item you list. Plus you get boned if you delist an item (which you want to do if the market surges or collapses in order to get your value for it) by having your trading account frozen. All of this is because of hacked accounts and all of those are because people with little to no knowledge of the internet, computing, and basic online security got phished, scammed, and hacked and lost all their precious internet shit. Oh, and people who complained about legitimate trades and demanded returns. So much for the marketplace, and therefore Steambucks. I get it, Valve, but I want to belong to a different tier of uses: the ones who don't fuck up and who never gave you a problem, who didn't expect the world, and just wanted things to stay mostly the same.

The whole thing is dumb anyway, and it's more of an annoyance than anything, but the userbase has been up in arms about it. Pro and contra camps have created a 2000 page thread in the Steam discussions forums that is filled with seething rage and skunk-like defensiveness. Smells like millennial spirit. It's true that downloading one free app is a not a vast and cruel cost, in order to have normal access to your free money. It's true that Valve HAD to do something to protect the credulous and simpleminded and give pause to the over complaining elements of their userbase. Steam users got the solution they deserved. It still rankles me a bit.

I hate apps, and I hate having to register for additional services on top of a service that used to work. I hate having to verify a million things through email, too – it's not just apps. I also hate having to jump through hoops, and I hate when a simple and effective thing that works gets screwed up by people who are predatory and the people who always fall for shenanigans. I hate 'security features' because I keep my computing simple and anonymous for a reason - to be unnoticed, to go unmolested, and to not be bothered or have to bother anyone else. Simple. Never got hacked. I hated two factor security when Blizzard did it for their notoriously noobish, unworldly, immature, and credulous WoW userbase (the cutesy security video forced on everyone as the security features spilled over brought me to the realization that the company I had grown up with had been functionally dead for a while) and seeing Steam go the same way is just depressing. And so very, very annoying, and so very rigidly authoritarian.

Therefore, being forced to wait two weeks to sell an item I used to sell just as safely in two seconds, on a service where I've never caused problems or suffered them, is kind of a kick in the teeth. I used Steam for 12 years and never got hijacked. I never used the Steam Wallet because any sane and reasonable person saw that keeping 'real' money in it was a bad idea and did nothing to make purchases easier or safer. Now the whole thing is getting so complex that even I, a most casual and disengaged user, am actually slightly worried. I mean I knew that Valve could legally shut down and completely deny me any access to the products I've bought through Steam, but I never thought they'd become the type of company that would even think about the possibility. In a sense all these restrictions and half-steps and annoyances are a sign that Valve is being serious and trying its best, but I don't know. It doesn't put my mind at ease either. So I guess I'm selling everything in two weeks, taking the money, and forgetting that Steambucks were ever a thing. Goodbye to an OK era.

Well, Valve is allowed to protect itself from legal action and the Steambucks belonged to them from the start, so it's their call. It's just very disappointing to see it happen like this. Every company is trying so hard to get my phone number or sell me extra apps these days, and I sit here waiting until the day Facebook defriends me for not giving it up (or Google, etc) but Valve is my videogame dealer, and I thought we had an understanding that this was a no-phone arrangement, casual but secure, and that was the strength of it. The internet ruins all things, yea, even itself, and that is known and has been known...

... but still. Damn. Shaking my damn head... it seems there is nowhere to hide, and that indifference is the only thing separating me from insanity. But it seems even I am not immune to writing about the thing and responding to it. It's just another case of dumb people getting fucked by bad people, with the majority caught in the middle wondering sadly why these things never change, why you can't protect the digital dumbasses from the hard knocks everyone has to take. The whole thing is stupid, and it's stupid of me to step into it, but the annoyance and disgust need a way out. Thank you for reading, and good luck.

The View from the Other Side: Political Reversals in Canadian Politics Since Oct. 19, 2015

The groups who enjoy criticizing the new Liberals for their supposed 'style over substance' approach (proven by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's youth, hair, and handsomeness) to political posturing might be foaming at the mouth with suppressed rage at the appointment of a defense minister who happens to have both substance and a generous dollop of swag. Harjit Sajjan is a military and police veteran and the media (both social and traditional) are already swooning over him.

It's an interesting case study: if the Harper government were to appoint a Sikh to a prominent cabinet location it would be seen, by some observers, as a rather baldfaced ploy to appeal to immigrants. But then, any rational person always saw some kind of Machiavellian undertone to anything done by the Harper Administration. It's the people widely considered paranoid (AKA not employed as a political analysts) who are seen as paranoiac when they attribute Machiavellianist tendencies to all parties. Either way, Minister Sajjan seems an excellent choice and the media is head over ass in love with the dude, and it makes Canada seem much more cool and culturally open than the United States of America, where the most prominent 'brown politicians' have 'white names' (Bobby Jindal et. al.) – but that's a cultural thing...

Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau is turning heads all over the place, as his looks and relative youth (which invited the criticism and mockery of the Conservative Party of Canada) draw the admiration of many, and the media did not hesitate to point out his effects on women. I don't know... all senior bureaucrats and political figures are more the inventions of their parties, in the contemporary system, than self-reliant actors. The wave of positivity is going to break at some point, and it will probably just lead to more of the same for Canada (either political apathy or another Conservative government, depending on the number and severity of scandals).

Also please note: the Niqab debate, a completely different issue from Sikhs in Government, managed to fail spectacularly and further sunk its inventors, but that is all ancient history according to the Gods of The News Cycles, who have decreed that ISIS, after being on the backburner until they attacked a European city, are Big News again. Islamophobia, which was also a backburner topic for a number of years, is now a household name to be invoked in hopeless arguments between idealistic youth and their racist parents. In Canada, Hindu temples were attacked, one mosque was firebombed, and a small segment of the population basically confirmed the idea of Racist Canada being alive and well in 2015.

The Paris Attacks of November 2015 are already the biggest news story of the month, whether deservedly or not, and are going to tinge all political discourse in the West and beyond for a year or more, and are having interesting effects. The United States is toying with the idea of isolationism as well as a final solution to its Muslim population (via special ID and blatant surveillance and oppression). Canada, meanwhile, announced via its global mouthpiece, Justin Trudeau, that it would allow refugees – a feel-good story in a week marred with tragedy and soapbox speeches about the world. Besides the 'rock star image' [via Lamesteam Media] , what else has this change in governance changed, in governance?

Fuck It - Just This Once Since This Blog is Dying Anyway

[The 'yous' in this article are hypothetical and not directed at the reader, or even at any one person, and merely symbolize a 'you' the writer has grown tired of - Ed.]

It's been long enough to say maybe three things about recent events and then hold my peace about it again. I don't like to pontificate over tragedy, but in the wake of the Paris attacks one sees the double standards of tragedy reportage in the West. Syria is war-torn for something like a thousand days and it's all old news, there are refugees drowning by the dozens in the Aegean sea, and in Africa, the usual business is struggling onward, but really - who is giving much of a shit about that? Who is putting a God damned filter on their social media in memoriam for the victims of Ebola? For the dead in Syria? For the ongoing war in Ukraine? For that reason I see the reporting about Paris as overblown. Maybe I'm cynical (I am in fact cynical) but the whole response seems highly sensationalistic, and it is being defended. The people who are trying to put it in perspective are being demonized and mocked. There is, no doubt, a 9-11ing going on. And there is such transparent bias from the media and so many people are actually getting upset that this is being pointed out.

Make no mistake - what you will see in the coming months will not undo the conditions that created the terror attacks. The coming years will likely only see those conditions reinforced, and it will only create more blind hatred. As much as I severely dislike people who commit unspeakable acts of violence, I really dislike the people who use crises as a means of control or who profit from it. I may be seen as blowhard cynic for my perspective, but there are many people who see a tragedy whose first thought is 'what will this mean for the financial markets tomorrow?' or 'how can I spin this to fit my agenda of making people crazy and fearful?'

Monuments around the world weren't lit up in solidarity with Pakistan when there was flooding, or when there was an earthquake - in either case hundreds died, and not all of them just from the natural disaster. We didn't even see much of a response when the Fukushima incident happened - there was lots of worried reportage about the reactor but I don't remember candlelight vigils or tearful celebrities. Why on Earth should I take your prayers and thoughts seriously if you only bestow them on the world's people who are most like you, from whom you and your culture most likely descended?

To me, at this point, your concerns seems too biased, and therefore I imagine they are worth nothing to the people of Paris, or to the men who attacked them – fellow humans who you no doubt blindly hate, who if they had anything to say would have been ignored and shouted down, reinforcing their nihilistic and desperate attitudes. Your concerns demonstrate what your true values are, and I don't know anything but I can see that you don't really care about 'humanity' you care about the parts of it you feel are right, and don't bother to learn about the rest. Humanity is like a sport to you.

Yes, I might well be a stupid fuck, but you behave worse, think less, and are proud about it. It's not wrong to point out how internalized the biases of our mainstream media are. It's actually important, so that all of us can move away from ignorance and arrogance, so that this little piece of shit species can become better. So I hate the politics of this whole thing, and even as my heart sank at the news, I felt worse knowing the kind of response I'd have to witness.

Nobody is right in this situation, and even though both parties are aggrieved, only one will gain the support or counsel of the world. Think about that, before you do the laziest possible thing and apply a filter to your facebook profile picture 'in support and solidarity'. You would do better to make peace with your neighbors, to call your parents, to show tangible love to the people who could immediately benefit from it. France will graciously accept, but does not at all need, your concern. And France, where liberty was oft reclaimed, will be less free from now on. So not only are you venting your useless concerns like so many stale farts, but the terrorists, again, have won.

Every time this happens, the predictable response of the majority is so rehearsed, and so insincere and so antiquated. The most honest thing I've seen so far is various states in the US refusing to take in refugees, ostensibly because they want to be evil or stupid or something. This is why I believe nobody is learning anything from tragedy except to make lots of noise and act stupidly. I saw that old 'not all Muslims' rhetoric come out, via meme picture, which isn't going to convince anyone of anything, thanks for trying, maybe try not saying or posting anything for a few months. Only idiots think that all Muslims harbor terrorist thoughts, and only idiots think that the internet will fix idiots. And idiots are going to attack Hindus and Sikhs, just like before, because idiots are idiots and we do not keep them on a short enough leash.

I am tired of the pontification I am hearing from the ignorant about this matter. If you do not truly care about humanity as a whole, please don't bother those around you with your ideas. You are half of why this problem will never be solved, and you will never think to examine yourself or your position. You will never have to examine your life, and that is why a Muslim in a poor country doesn't like you and thinks you're part of an evil culture.

I am going to log off now, drink a coffee, and gratefully take a deep breath. Thanks for reading, hopefully this insane screed of mine somehow betters you, or offers you anything.

Shitty Month Showdown: November vs. February

In the northern latitudes there are four months that are dreaded, that can chill a man's soul even as he sits in the warmth of the summer sun, and they are known as November, December, January, February. These four horsemen of the freezocalypse are merciless, grim, dark, bitter months – which is why Northern cultures since prehistory have organized big excessive festivals and holidays in them, because otherwise too many people would hibernate, go insane, and/or commit suicide.

Hence December with its put-on Christmas cheer, its casual holiday alcoholism, and its cozy nights with the family you have avoided most of the year even though you all love each other, supposedly. Hence... uh... Christmas, and the reason it's so big is because the corporate society we belong to has to keep us 'goal oriented' so that we don't drop out of their nonsense and discover actual meanings to life and think critically about the system we were born into and if any of it is actually right. But also, it keeps the shadows away, and turns darkness at 4:30 P.M. into 'coziness' as opposed to 'I viciously hate Daylight Savings Time'. And there's the religious significance, and the butt-hurt War on Christmas style rants from bigoted ignoramuses who think the LIBERAL LIBERATION FORCE are going to force them into sensitivity camps.

In December, the remembrance of the people we have to grudgingly buy gifts for (because they give us gifts and WILL judge us if we don't do the adult thing) will at some point cause us to enter that holy tabernacle of consumerism - the Christmastime store. It doesn't matter if it's a mall, a boutique shop, or even a corner store: get ready to hear some jingly, jangly Christmas cacophony that will probably make you feel worse even if you are mentally damaged enough to find joy in a season peoples from all over the southern world associate solely with the word 'forbearance'.

But that's all beside the point. Today I would like to compare the dreary cousins of December, two months that are important solely because they are months that people have to live through in order to get to classically 'good' months. November is proudly mediocre and even in a good year it's the month where the dying plants have mostly all died, the skies are grey and get a darker a bit more quickly each day, and any good weather is The Last Good Weather of the Year. February is colder, bleaker, and generally worse in every way, but it's also closer to the redemption of Late March, where the weather starts to feel amazingly fresh and the promise of life is in the air.

19 Screenshots that Reveal the Hollowness of Business Insider and Modern Culture in General

Dilbert IS business, basically. Laugh and care about it to advance your career!

In an era of clickbait nonsense aggregation bullshit, online content in general is in danger of becoming a lobotomized, numbers-driven, shortform mess. When I state with confidence that using the internet can make a person extremely dumb, paranoid, hateful, angry, etc... I am speaking mostly about the content aggregator sites, although mainstream media websites and the 'respected' online only publications are also wracked with issues like poor editorial standards and their habit of mixing serious stories with internet culture fluff. The end result is an uncritical and uninformed mass of people with simplistic world-views and ideas who are around you, and vote and have jobs and discuss whatever malformed ideas they have with like-minded people and shout at those who disagree with them.

I started reading Business Insider earlier this year. I don't know why, I suppose I wanted a wider selection of sites and I'd never really frequented an aggregator before. I figured it would be helpful in determining what wider news trends were... but I was wrong, because Business Insider isn't a news site. It's an aggregator with a 'business' lifestyle slant, which means it will present you with the idols of the cult of success, the accouterments of the cult of success, and Forbes-like fawning and panic about wealth with a subset of stories about actual business some of which may have been bought and paid for by the businesses prominent in that story. Looking at you Shake Shack, Soul Cycle, whatever the newest 'Chipotle-killer' is, etc...

What kept me reading was that I wanted to see how low they'd go. Some of their clickbait articles are so obvious that the site functions as a sort of case study in the decline of news caused by the massive expansion into the void of the internet. The fact that the site was successful enough to be sold for millions (more millions than I'm comfortable with) is a sign that this kind of operation appeals to someone – even if that someone is just advertising and/or PR agencies or some guy with a cargo-cult mentality who thinks reading the imaginatively titled Business Insider will get him a corner office or board seat.

That's the thing, it's not insider information, it's widely available information with a few home-brewed stories... on the one hand they put money in the hands of the people who write useless internet articles, and as much as I do pity them, they are my kind and it's better that there are still jobs where people who write get jobs (even if they go through six or more years of post-secondary education just to write for Buzzfeed or BI). To me, it doesn't matter if that person cannot spell or use words properly,and doesn't know how to use contractions, doesn't have any real passion for language or writing... they could be the biggest, least ink-stained hack of all time but if they're getting six cents a word while a video producer or hype man is out of work, I'm happy. On the other, less expansive hand, they don't produce any 'good' stuff. They provide a service that generally repeats information for a layman crowd. Longform is dead, et cetera...

It's a website that's good at being a brand, and one of those new kinds of brands launched and owned by people slightly more web-savvy than the people who run newspapers, which even as I type it seems crazy, because everyone uses the internet now. The fact remains that traditional media have not adapted super well, I guess, because there are voids where a shrewd person can set up shop and in a few years be valued at millions of dollars.

But what kind of content... that's the important question, right? What's the kind of content they got? Well, it's an eyeful, and I've been filing away some of the more mordant, absurd, and frivolous examples:

The headlines are a schizoid mix of important news and 'content', which may affect the minds of long term readers.

Interested in the insider 'hack' about hotels that you probably never knew about?

["Oh, word?" -Ed.]

Trudeaumania: Part Deux?

It is approaching twenty minutes to midnight as I write this and if the news coverage and projections and preliminary mumbo jumbo is correct, Justin Trudeau is going to replace Steven Harper as Prime Minister of Canada. The craziest thing, thus far, is how it's a Liberal majority - in an election where fools like me were certain it would be a minority government outcome. In the best scenario I could envision: if there was no real change of government, at least the Conservatives would lose their majority, and all the parties would have to learn how to govern – not squabble and waste taxpayer monies – together.

The skeptical pessimist part of me just sees today's results as the pendulum of public favor swinging between two largely similar though ideologically distinct dominant political parties. And I am not convinced it isn't, but another part of me tempers my disbelief and wants to believe that Justin Trudeau will mark a new era in Canadian politics and therefore the country as a whole. Perhaps in ten years the country will be unrecognizable: the slowing economy revivified, the police state moderated or mutated into something more constructive, the puzzle of protecting one of the world's largest countries with what amounts to a tiny population solved, the political climate more respectful and positive, the tenuous possibility of Arctic sovereignty stabilized, the environment protected... and any other of dozens of serious issues put to rest or at least constructively engaged.

This is an election, mind, which has been strangely muted but rather intense, with very high stakes such that an American weekly news show covered it (though John Oliver is British and therefore would know at least two things about each commonwealth member, and perhaps even care about Canada on a personal level). It got heated in the final days, with perhaps one of the most boneheaded, bald attempts at recovery and public control yet to be seen in this election, a full page front cover advertisement... let me post a copy here below for you, in full color!

You know what they say about courting voters: aim for the wallet and the heart will follow... I don't actually know what they say about courting voters, but this to my eyes is an example of what they talk about. What I like is that apart from being kind of a tone-deaf and stupid and reactionary move, it's very shrewd to target the Liberals specifically, as if nobody in politics actually took the NDP seriously as a contender. I guess a real lesson is never to trust polls, I guess they just exist to measure the response of a sample size of the public so the data can be sold to political parties so they can invent good stories and manage their media appearance and tone instead of engaging a public by discussing governance concepts and ideas for bettering the country as opposed to making it a cheap place to live (if you want that, you go to America), and being honest about challenges instead of using them to spread fear and disgust.

Ah mais oui – the Sun line of newspapers. If you want to see what they're like, look them up online and see what they consider front page material. Celebrity gossip, fashion tips, crime stories, automotive news, hockey golf and football... all the stuff Gord MacRegular Canuck III would care about with a blend of partisan politically charged agenda-stories that are definitely surely not endorsing any specific party or being biased. But then, the ecosystem of the Canadian media is not the healthiest in the world and this isn't the time to discuss that.

There was a lot of strategic voting, I think, with motivated activist voting in order to not allow the Conservatives another majority or anything like it. Hence the NDP getting dumped... I feel for Mulcair, it must have been heartbreaking knowing the blow was coming and being completely unable to avert it. Not so Steve Harper (my sources tell me he is eyeing a job in hockey commentary or advising the CAPP), who is expected to step down as leader of the Conservatives, after being in power for a long time and being pretty successful in what he wanted to do, which any Canadian will tell you about if you ask them.

I'm sure Harper won't be heartbroken, but surely disappointed if not a bit sour about losing when none of his victories were particularly hard-fought (or, allegedly, fairly fought). Them's the breaks in Canada, though. You run a tight ship that goes where it wants, all the while rust grows, and one stormy day the thing implodes and sinks. But you get your insurance money and walk down the street feeling pure relief, once the sullenness has subsided, and thinking maybe to go into a different business after all...

One amusing anecdote is that on Twitter (a popular text-broadcasting social media app established in 2006 that is popular with media people and older millenials) the story seems to be STEPHEN HARPER with some mixed messages about who did what. But I guess 'Ridding Canada of Harper' for good or bad, became the theme of this election. That means no minorities and no coalitions, and the world will see what that means.

Isn't it crazy, though? I mean just look at that. Stephen Harper's shadow is so long, and mighty, that Justin Trudeau (soon to be sworn in as the Right Honourable Mr. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, etc) even in victory stands in it. As in: he's overshadowed by Harper as if he were a supernatural figure of some sort, a kind of human rights/environmental grim reaper.

Trudeau's victory speech was inspiring (it had Political Maverick Jack Layton overtones) and polite to other contenders, Mulcair's was resigned but determined, and Harper's omitted the fact that he was stepping down as leader, but NO REGRETS BITCHES. All the speeches have a fair bit of politicalese in both languages and if you want to hear what Duceppe or May said you'll have to look them up. In this writer's respectful opinion, they were never really in the race (except in their respective strongholds).

Let the whingeing commence! Let the qualified commentators do their thing. Let the vitriol spill over, as it will despite the calls for clemency and moderation by the leaders. I can't wait for the Trudeau Facts articles which will point out his deceased brother (killed by an avalanche) and all the Father/Son comparisons observers of Canadian politics will be forced to endure. How voter turnout numbers will look is going to most interesting for me, but I haven't seen figures at the time of this post and need to sleep. In conclusion:

Hootings and Ramblings of a Deranged Dead Blogger

Thanks mostly to my own foolishness and sloth, this blog has the buoyancy of a lead brick and the influence of a field shrew. I had hopes for it. I thought it could get me ahead, or help me hone my craft. Instead I alienated myself further, and whatever dozens of readers I might've had have dissipated into the dark aether of the internet. My foolishness, and also my stubbornness. Due to my own stubbornness I view modern culture with basically unbridled contempt, and instead of trying in any way to improve things, I wallow in this dead end era of hype, spin, and mindless arrogance. I despise the way of life I spinelessly inhabit.

There's a funny anecdote from the 19th century, beginning around 1860, wherein Great Lakes fisheries completely destroyed a species of sturgeon. First it was considered a useless bycatch, and was stacked to rot on the shore and fed to pigs and generally misused... then its worth was discovered, which put it in the nearly fatal sights of the greedy optimists who believed there could be no end to natural riches. That fish still survives at some infinitesimal fraction of its pre-19th century population. What's this got to do with anything? Well the fisheries industry learned very little from the destruction of the Great Lakes.

In the ensuing hundred and fifty years many other species of fish have been devastated, the ocean's been filled with garbage, radiation, and the refuse from dipshits on cruise ships. The oceans, allegedly the birthplace of life, have been treated like a merry-go-round of possibility and nobody wants to take responsibility or change how things are done. Now, I don't ever believe that life will just give up because conditions are bad. The oceans won't entirely die anytime soon, but our ability to sustain ourselves with their bounty is diminished by all the bone-headed nonsense unrealistically optimistic businesses perpetrated.

What's that got to do with anything? It's why I'm a pessimist. Why I'm shitty, of a bad temperament unless I've drank enough to escape the downward pull of reality. What happened in the Great Lakes happened in a slightly different sense with every market crash and recession, every extinction prompted by humanity, and and and... so what, right? Things need to be the way they are so they can remain the way they are, so that people big and small, rich and poor, stay calm and comfortable and their entitlements to misery or luxury remain constant. We need to listen to the optimists as we climb out of each increasingly unbelievable crisis, and ignore the realists who warned us all along.

Even thinking about it bothers me because it's all such hackish reasoning. It's been done a million times, the truths are self evident and the truisms are deafening but it doesn't lead to real progress in any meaningful sense, which is either a factor of the naturally tardiness of progress and evolution or the sign that something is deeply wrong with the world and its most powerful and influential humans. Are the people at the top evil? Are they simply ignorant? Are the powerful inflated with such a facile self-worth and arrogance that they cannot be touched by the truth, by self-doubt, by any of the checks and restraints nature set on the human mind? Are they doing the right thing, trying and failing, and it's just 'leftists' who paint them with a broad brush of villainy? What is it? Why is it so hard to find a clear perspective? Is there none or does nobody care enough to attempt it?

Old sociology texts have only made me more cynical about success but as a result I'm a nobody, with no long-term goals, no particularly fun vices, and modest unglamorous hobbies like attempting to learn as much as possible, reading, and traveling, mostly on my own power, to nearby places - in short living in a cage of my own design within the larger cage of socioeconomic convention. Lately it's not been enough, but what I eschewed still seems hateful to me, but I have fewer and fewer certainties. Whatever is righteous and humble opens me to criticism (some legitimate, some merely hateful of divergence) and misery, and the sense that I am doing less harm than others doesn't matter, when others won't ever give a shit or sacrifice anything... I am giving myself a kind of slow martyrdom that lots of people live because they can't escape it, but which I chose out of perverse instinct.

Well whatever. Nobody knows anything. The people who get paid millions to hold the title of CEO are protected by the majority opinion that they have a 'necessary skill-set' and 'important contacts' and while that may be true in some cases, it is most often the product of a privileged upbringing and those 'important contacts' liking them. There may have been sexual favors and silence on sensitive secrets traded for power. There may, for all we know, be a few dozen secret societies that encourage the conspiracy set with half-truths in order to make the very idea of conspiracy (which in its least-fantastical and most realistic sense has been true for thousands of years) laughable to the mainstream. If the search for truth becomes a joke it will frighten away the serious-minded because their reputations may suffer (and have, in the flawed examples of yesteryear) But even so: what of it? If they're that successful and we're still alive, with coffee and a newspaper of a Sunday morning, who gives a fuck?

Why the hell does anyone care about celebrity culture? It's corrosive and stupid and the worst kinds of people are made rich by it and it's just a shameful, stupid spectacle that could be replaced or eclipsed by more edifying things that aren't advertised as heavily and let people be themselves. From what are Ellen and her feel-good safety show distracting you? Why is the internet three-quarter owned by celebrities? Why do even people who 'hate that shit' know where Kanye's yacht is parked, give a shit about the Kardashians? It's not celebrities, but rather their passionate followers, who should be flogged and shamed. Celebrities should be ignored, and have some of their riches taken away and donated to charity or used to defray government debt (debt is the new money, since money is just based on imaginary value now)... although the governments are celebrities and don't deserve the money either. I don't hate the entertainment industry... we need distraction so we don't think about killing ourselves or how little any of this means or how foolish our young aspirations were or how fucked the world might be. Maybe we should get rid of the middleman and let the entertainment industry run countries, and the world.

Why aren't soft drinks heavily taxed on the basis of their unhealthiness (it's only fair if tobacco and alcohol are rightly taxed based on their unhealthiness, which is not two orders of magnitude worse than drinking some carbonated sugar water each day)? Why do people get so upset at commonsense agreements that may make life easier for everyone?  Why do we all get off on the idea of hating someone (it is acceptable with targets like criminals, terrorists, people in other countries, and the insensitive)? Why are so many people around the globe so proud of being so ignorant? Why all this conflict? Lots of it was started by Western governments, who 'rule' an anesthetized populace with increasingly nauseating and wasteful habits and thoughts. Convenience and venality have destroyed humanity. If a system this disastrous and uncontrollable could collapse, I would say we are living in the closing years of it, but I don't even know what to think anymore. Avarice looks after itself, but where does it all end?

I wish more people could be happier with less, and with the idea that their not taking something ensured it would get to someone else who needed it. Decades of surplus production and planned obsolescence have made consumerism a nightmare of waste and distraction and its precepts have invaded everything from politics to faith to the 'third world' (outdated term, I know)... but I'm not about to launch a crusade even though I think it's miserable and destroying the best and most promising parts of being human and jeopardizes the whole world. I don't care... I exist within that system anyway and would have to take drastic steps to actually leave it, much less oppose it, which would then further invalidate my position due to 'extremism' and 'ecomania' and other bullshit critiques the comfortable heap on the anxious. If I find a way to stop colluding, I will be branded a traitor. There is no place in the law for people who see an urgent need for progress, who see the Western Lifestyle as a blight that needs to be changed now, painfully, not in 'a generation' while our prospects diminish.

I guess I'm saved by the need to laugh and to seek out the absurd before I even think of countenancing the more prosaic horrors implicit in the contemporary world. Even so, it's not enough... I feel powerless, completely powerless, to stop any of this madness and I always have. I feel so disinherited that I no longer consider myself real or a part of anything... I'm just a detached actor with no lines or stage presence, no beliefs be they foolish, hopeful, angry, or anything. I live in a void and everything that convinces me otherwise is constantly in danger of being swallowed by the deepening void of nonsense that has given rise to our slick, dishonest, empty culture. Those 'backwards' parts of the world don't fear the West – they pity it. 

[Don't worry, I will return to low-risk stuff next week like reviewing products, interviews, and less dire observation tempered by humor. Or I'll be gone, in which case, crawler bots, it's been fun. You won't need to index this site much longer.]

Four Lessons Learned in the 2015 Canadian Election Cycle

With nine days to go and advance polling taking place this weekend, it's a perfect time to look back on a strangely muted, bloated, and distracted election season. Will there be a revival of youth voting? Will the Conservative Party of Canada, despite dozens of instances of bad-faith governance, retake the majority? Will apathy win? Is there any hope for Canada to break out of mediocrity and return to something of prominence and respectability in the global arena? Find out in this loosely researched, kind of lazy blog post!

1. It's Easy to Hijack and Distort Public Debate (Whoa)

If anything, the Niqab Discussion went so far out of bounds that it summoned such specters as Terrorists, Terrorism, Al-Qaeda, ISIL/ISIS/DAESH, and the shooting death of one corporal and vehicular death of a warrant officer in 2014... it brought out the absolute worst in mainstream, main street Canadian thought about international policy and immigration and hasn't stopped. If the operators of political discourse wanted to steer attention away from Conservative misdeeds, they succeeded admirably. Even people I spoke to (in various bars) who 'don't give a shit' and 'couldn't' bring this up as a reason for voting conservative or abstaining completely.

The Big Sigh: A Tired Take on Imgur

Imgur is an internet-famous image hosting service that grew into notoriety by giving reddit users a place to easily host, link, and post stuff. Somehow it became its own community, and, as you might expect from an image hosting service-turned-social hangout, it's a bizarre community filled with great examples of why I (and others like me) hate the internet. It's mildly disgusting, full of self-congratulation, exhibitionism, 'I'm a doctor and..." types of self experts, achievement sharers, content reposters, bottom-of-the-barrel memes, and all the stuff you wish would stop making you depressed and uncertain (or is that just me?) about the future of humanity.

I first used Imgur in 2011 because older image hosting services had expired, or I'd forgotten passwords, or were not as Web 2.0 easy to use and therefore afforded me very little in the way of quality service. Naturally I used it for a month, uploaded a total of eight images, and then forgot my password and didn't bother to use it for a long time. In that time I once again failed to be an internet poweruser and didn't get famous or really succeed at anything... but that's beside the point.

I'm not sure what the deal was in 2011 but I recently logged back in [Note: you don't have to log in to see pictures] and checked Imgur out because I'd heard somewhere that it was a hive of idiocy, reposted content, and was almost at the point where it would give Facebook or user comment sections a run for their money. Naturally, following the cringe-wave of modern internet trends, and hating myself, and out of damned curiosity, I dared to tread where so many retreaders tread water... I went in. I looked around... and I cringed like I had rarely cringed before. Oh I also saw a couple of cool things, so all in all I'd recommend the site. It's like reddit without (most of) the text. Interesting, for an image sharing website, it has a 'trophy' system and messaging services. If you love feature bloat, cyber inbreeding, and shaking your head in stunned belief – you're in luck, gentle reader!

What follows is an incomplete selection of self-unawares, overshares, and things that made me sigh and feel like I belonged to a dead-end species helping itself into a steep decline that will be interrupted when the machines which facilitated our decay finally achieve sentience... turning the world into a preschool/retirement community for a species that peaked sometime between fire and thumb twiddling about A.I. Enjoy the spectacle!

This gif is great. I don't know where it comes from. Probably some millenial kind of movie or show or youtube sensation. I've seen it a million times, but never seen it used to alert the internet to future sex. Good work and godspeed, young internet user and potential-sex-getter.

I believe I took a screenshot of this as a 'slice of life' of Imgur, if you will. Perhaps as a future project I will make an average aggregate slice which will always contain one kind of stupid meme, one kind of twitter repost, one cute animal thing, and a couple of bizarre 'who gives a shit?' images. That said, I might just enter the fray for those sweet, sweet Internet Points. You see, Imgur allows the same sort of content voting that reddit is famous for. Like child, like parent...

Here I took another slice for posterity... This one's worth a detailed look. A compiled and curated list of these would be amazingly depressing. More depressing than someone using a meme to alert the internet about an averted suicidal reasoning or cute gift ideas (hint: always fill in coupon with some kind of nonstandard sex act). That's two suicide posts in one slice... if this was a game of Imgur Bingo (copyright, me, 2015) this would probably win me an used iPod nano.

Hey girl, maybe focus on the wedding... this is ridiculous. You're almost a parody of the media's 'Millenial'. Maybe it's all just a joke, I hope so. Are the rest of the images worthwhile? You, as ever, decide. I didn't like it so much.

The Great Canadian Election Season of 2015

The world itself shall feign ignorance but, secretly, all eyes are on Canada and all breath is bated until the outcome is reported. Anything could happen. Anyone could be at risk for a bungle, a gaffe, or even political exile in disgrace. Yes, dearest reader, Canada is preparing to elect (or reelect) a Prime Minister on the 19th of October of this year – and you're invited (even if just to watch powerlessly from the sidelines)! Without this well-timed post, you might have missed it, you might even have believed it to be an insignificant event in a marginally important country, but it's coming and could change everything.

Though there are more than three parties running in the election, only three matter. It's big blue versus adorable orange, with rascally red on the sidelines – or is it? Everyone knows the Conservatives due to their having been in power since 2006, with the inscrutable Stephen Harper leading them – and Canada – into some kind of wacky, police state, borderline xenophobic, oil-filled future. The Liberals are also well-known, as much due to history as to recent problems, and also because of the divisiveness of party leader Justin Trudeau. The NDP used to be the dark horse party but have consolidated major recent gains and seem to be potent contenders under the leadership of Thomas Mulcair, and might take a majority stake in post-Harper Canada.

Despite this exciting three-way race many people are either inordinately smug or completely pessimistic about what will resolve in October. The defeatist crowd, citing the past nine years, is ready to sigh and tell you that the Harper Conservatives are not done yet. Realists are predicting minority governments, with either the Liberals or NDP 'winning' (insofar as one can call a minority government a victory, since it will face outrageous struggles as zero-sum political antics stymie their attempts at reform and problem solving). The smart money, if you trust polls, is that the NDP will make history and get their first taste of federal power - their first taste of might, which may well destroy them.

There have been a number of fun scandals so far. I think each party has had at least one fledgling member's social media life end their candidacy - one insulted gay people, one insulted Muslims, a recent one is in trouble for posting about marijuana (the divisive, psychedelic crop for which Canada is, oddly, not renowned). None of it was out of place, and many of the scandalous events happened online and years ago and lots of new candidates are 'young adults' by world standards (22) and 'practically infants' in Canadian Age Reckoning. Such muckraking is to be expected in any election, really, and none of the scandals thus far are nearly as bad as the Rob Ford Saga or the more recent Senate problems or various wastes of taxpayer money.