Some other thoughts I had last night, in no particular order:
1.) Hillary Clinton looked great. Relaxed, happy, and content. She honestly looked ten years younger than she did during the campaign, and I am not one to reflexively compliment Hillary (how does that work for the understatement of the decade). Also, there was a very intimate look between her and Obama as he approached the stage. There was something about the nonverbals there that seemed to suggest Obama really trusts her. Watch it for yourself.
2.) Also while you watch it, notice the cameraman with the shiny black hair following Obama- watch how he just blends in. When you watch the feed, you notice Obama greeting everyone and you notice everyone around him, and only if you pay attention, you will see the cameraman. He is that good at blending in- he looks like a mouse darting around. I thought that was interesting.
3.) Jim Jones is a man. I imagine being called into the Commandant’s office must have been terrifying. I bet he can kill you with his bare hands, but would never need to, because his stare would kill you first.
4.) I am still a sucker for a uniform. Just love the Joint Chiefs standing up there in their dress uniforms. Blah blah blah, I’m an authoritarian, blah blah blah. If you had any idea how much work it is to make their uniforms look that good, you would understand.
5.) The speech was an obvious home run. The polling data is through the roof.
6.) Is it just me, or were the pundits on every channel (except MSNBC, where the gushing was spoofable) playing it pretty straight and true last night?
7.) I have decided that anyone who decries the lack of specifics in a speech like this is someone who just wants to bitch about something but has nothing to complain about. There are never any specifics in speeches like this. Ever. What kind of rousing oratory would it be to read line by line from a budget proposal? Get a grip, folks.
At any rate, I have stuff to do. Consider this your open thread until someone says something appalling at the WaPo chat in a couple hours. You can almost set your clock to that, and thank God DougJ is reading those so I don’t have to.
Balconesfault
Frank Ahrens from the WaPost just "fact checked" Obama’s speech this AM on MSNBC. Among his "facts":
Obama’s claim that the stimulus bill will create or save 3.5 million jobs is apparently a lie, since Ahrens experts say that it will only create about 3 million jobs.
Obama’s claim that he’ll cut the deficit in half is a lie – because his experts say that the deficit could rise to 2.5 times the GDP.
Really. WTF? I almost blew coffee through my nose. Unless I was mishearing, the Washington Post just sent a guy out to not only make stuff up, but to make up stuff that was so insane it actually makes John Boehner seem economically literate.
Meanwhile – Ahrens also complained that Obama’s speech was too light on substance and numbers. This after a week where pundits kept complaining that Obama has been too wonky and gloomy lately, and needs to inspire people.
Damn, I wish that Rachel was interviewing Ahrens, instead of the MSNBC morning bimbette who just smiled and nodded.
linda
funny the shoutout to gen james jones…. i noticed him too last nite. he just oozes a ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibe. what struck me overall about the early minutes as they gathered was how joyous they appeared to be — in the midst of such national angst. perhaps it was the realization that it wasn’t idiot son (with the evil deadeye dick peering over his shoulder) who would be addressing the nation…
horatius
Hmm…. Looks like Mr. Cole is falling in love with the Obamessiah!!!
I believe MSNBC was being fair and balanced. After all Tweety did get a thrill up his leg watching Commander Cod-piece.
Teak111
Completely off topic, but it is an open thread.
How long does WOW addiction last?
My teens play and their grades are dropping. Thought they would burn through like PS games, but that isn’t happening.
OTOH, they gotta learn for themselves.
Captain Haddock
This speech was OK. Just OK. Nothing as moving or profound as Bush could deliver. Where was the talk of the Manimal threat? What about Moon bases and Mars?
Jindal was good, but hobbled by his advisers. He could have been better, he could have been more Sarah.
joe from Lowell
I wouldn’t want to be a Republican for the next few years. I wonder if this is what it was like to be a conservative in 1981?
Bobby Jindal is teh FAIL. I am SO not intimidated by the possibility of him running for president.
Dave
@Teak111:
It can get bad. My nephew is obsessed with WoW and plays it for hours. OTOH, I tried the two week trial and couldn’t be bothered to even play it for that long. And I’ve been gaming since the 2600 rolled out.
sgwhiteinfla
The real fireworks came on Hardball after the speech. I thought Joan Walsh and Michelle Bernard were going to come to blows for a minute. Bernard is a certifiable wingnut but they never describe her as a conservative when she comes on. She actually tried to say Jindal did a good job.
Pilgrim
Got to agree about the nonverbals between Obama and HRC. Nice pickup. Most of the time as he comes in he’s smiling and gladhanding, but with Hillary something else a little less showy and more sincere comes through.
Teak111
Obsession is a good word for it, and like an addict, when you try to intervene, you get rage. The game doesn’t look any different then any other game. Hoping there is some kinda burnout soon.
Starfish
WoW addiction can last a lifetime. I have friends who have been playing for years and are not tired of it. Some of them devote all their free time to it. Stop your children before it is too late.
Will Danz
Agreed. However… even given that rousing oratory was the order of the night, I thought there were PLENTY of specifics, scaled appropriately for the occasion.
Obama was talking over the heads of the Beltway idiots and right to America. He didn’t want or need to go through the budget line by line. What he intended to do was make the broad outlines of his priorities crystal clear. And it was a wild success, in that regard.
Dave
@Teak111:
You could always cut off their monthly fee? Though that is like making a cigarette smoker go cold turkey.
What my brother and his wife eventually did was give him a "bank" of hours per week. That bank could be increased or decreased based on other things (behavior, chores and the like). That kind of moderated it, and then when the warm weather hit, he spent more time outside.
I guess it is more of a controlled obsession now. Whether that is good or not…
Dave
@Will Danz:
Someone talked about that last night (Matthews?). Obama’s biggest support group right now is the American people, not Democrats in DC or the chattering idiots. And as long as he communicates with them, the rest of it doesn’t really matter.
Zifnab
Fix’d.
kid bitzer
the polling data is slightly astounding.
adding the "very positives" to the "positives, you get 92% positive.
is there precedent for that?
Dave
@kid bitzer:
No.
Not even Reagan had a positive response rating like that. I have never seen a response like that in my life.
John S.
Well said, John.
Now that you’ve summed up my thoughts exactly, I can move on to a fulfilling work day without giving a shit what anyone else in the blahgosphere is saying.
Zifnab
@Dave: It’s a really hard game to get into. You kinda need a pre-established base of friends playing with you or a bunch of new folks you meet and regularly hang out with in game.
But after that it becomes a surrogate for real life. Why catch a movie? Why meet up to play street hockey? Why sit around watching TV? You’ve got a bunch of people to hang out with online.
Paul L.
On the other hand, The idiot Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi looked like the Joker with that fake smile pasted on her botoxed face.
DougJ
That kind of talk is really going to help Republicans with women voters.
ricky
Ain’t I the lucky one. My 13 year old thinks the best thing about WOW was the Southpark episode making fun of it.
He would not watch Obama’s speech, though. He has seen him live after all, in 2007.
My two favorite things of the night. 1) Obama getting Republicans to their feet on not leaving a debt our grandkids cannot repay then knocking them to their knees on letting him inherit their deficit. 2) Rachel Maddow saying she was paid to talk and yet was left speechless by Jindal invoking Katrina as an example of anything.
Josh Hueco
@Zifnab:
And that’s different from Balloon Juice, how?
/looks in mirror, has jarring self-realization
J.
Happy (?) Ash Wednesday. (I wonder how many people have given up blogging for Lent?)
Thanks for the recap/highlights of last night’s speech, John. I had a killer headache and was curled up under the covers with the lights and TV and radio off. But I will check out the footage based on your recommendation.
Dave
@Zifnab:
That must be why I didn’t get into it. I’m a bit of a misanthrope and can’t be bothered to play with others…even online. :)
Laura W
I can’t quibble with people who think Pelosi is over-botoxed, nor those who believe she was wearing a puke-green hoodie, wet suit, or duvet cover — but I am certain that her smile was genuine.
Betsy
@Paul L.: My, it’s amazing how people can see different things. I was watching it and I thought she looked like she couldn’t *keep* herself from smiling. A friend emailed me to say that she looked like she was at her daughter’s wedding or something, she seemed so delighted.
Also, what DougJ said @ 21.
BruceK
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve noticed that Hillary Clinton seems to come across as a much better person when she’s not trying to service her own ambition.
Same can be said for a lot of people, I’m sure. But I did encounter her once, when I was working to get His High Mighty Royal and Imperious Shrubliness thrown out of office in 2004. She was speaking at a campaign event for Kerry, and she came across as a pretty decent human being, before, during, and after.
Ambition does bad things to people – you can probably see it at all levels of society.
(As an aside, does anyone else see the current President as viewing the Presidency as a job that needs doing, rather than a state of being? His predecessor seemed to take the latter view, from my limited knowledge of psychology.)
jibeaux
Somehow I got on the RNC’s email list. I guess I have enemies, I dunno. But Michael Steele linked to Jindal’s speech, hee hee. That might mean more people will watch it. Hee hee. My WTF moment of the email:
In other words, the money will come from drilling, vouchers, and being the opposite of how we’ve been for eight years.
I would say I appreciate that they’re trying, but are they really?
The Grand Panjandrum
My favorite blog line about the Jindal speech came from Nate Silver:
Ouch!
John, I’m with you on the uniforms. But not everyone can pull off looking good in one. You’ve to be in good shape or you look like those twelve sandwich eating militia guys. If Dunlop’s disease has gotten the best of you, you are better off wearing a standard issue shelter half.
Laura W
@BruceK:
As I reflected upon your comment, MSNBC played a commercial for this, Obama speaking throughout. I’d never seen it. Goes to your point nicely, however.
JL
Pelosi just shined when Obama mentioned the passage of SCHIP’s.
.
twostepcub
my random thoughts…
1) very telling that Roland Burris entered the chamber between Lieberman and McCain…What’s going on there?
2) I really think Pelosi was geniunely thrilled, after being there for so many years of sitting behind Bush’s SOTU addresses.
3) It was worth watching MSNBC just for the Matthews’ "Oh God" moment when Jindal walked in. Major buzzkill.
Shinobi
Teak111:
I have been playing wow since it came out in 2005. I have never been addicted to it, but I have lost two boyfriends to it. (Good riddance, thanks WoW)
This is not the kind of game that you finish. And it takes a long time to burn out on it because they are constantly adding new content.
You literally spend hundreds of hours building up a character so you can actually start playing the game (which can take hundreds of hours.) You play with friends, which takes more time and makes it more immersive. And as soon as you start getting bored Blizzard will add a new 2 hour 60 person thing that you HAVE to do at least 10 times so you can get the brand new headpeice for your toon that will make you INVINCIBLE.
Seriously, you’re going to have to step in. Blizzard will actually allow you to limit their account to certain tiems of the day from a parental controls menu. I think making them earn their WoWo time through good grades or chores or whatever is probably a good idea.
I suppose the alternative is to let your kids live with the consequences of their actions. Which may be a good teaching tool, but yeah… this is why I don’t have kids. Good luck!
Gus
I read a bit of Gerson’s column in which he, no shit, compares Jindal to Bill Clinton. Then I read four pages of reader comments, not one of which agrees with him. I’ve never seen that lopsided a beating in reader comments. There’s always a few Kool Aid drinkers who will defend any position a Republican takes. Not this time.
Punchy
OK, I just watched the BJindy speech thing. HOLY FUCK was that horrible delivery. It’s a like a schoolteacher addressing 2nd graders. Voice inflection a fucking train wreck.
NOW I understand how Brooks is so disgusted. The guy’s a disaster at the mic.
Paul L.
@Laura W:
I should have used "that fake looking smile".
But maybe I am projecting my dislike of the woman.
JL
Has Fox News showed any clips of Jindal’s speech or are they just cherry picking quotes and reading them?
Elizabeth dingbat is on The View trying to defend Jindal.
linda
@horatius:
yeah, actually he did show his drooling love for the package bearer — along with g gordon liddy:
MATTHEWS: What do you make of this broadside against the USS Abraham Lincoln and its chief visitor last week?
LIDDY: Well, I — in the first place, I think it’s envy. I mean, after all, Al Gore had to go get some woman to tell him how to be a man. And here comes George Bush. You know, he’s in his flight suit, he’s striding across the deck, and he’s wearing his parachute harness, you know — and I’ve worn those because I parachute — and it makes the best of his manly characteristic. You go run those — run that stuff again of him walking across there with the parachute. He has just won every woman’s vote in the United States of America. You know, all those women who say size doesn’t count — they’re all liars. Check that out. I hope the Democrats keep ratting on him and all of this stuff so that they keep showing that tape.
MATTHEWS: You know, it’s funny. I shouldn’t talk about ratings. I don’t always pay attention to them, but last night was a riot because, at the very time [U.S. Rep.] Henry Waxman [D-CA] was on — and I do respect him on legislative issues — he was on blasting away, and these pictures were showing last night, and everybody’s tuning in to see these pictures again.
Tom Hilton
jibeaux
I realize I’m just running with my own riff here all by my lonesome, but that’s o.k. Think about that little three-pronged proposal for strengthening the economy, and figure out if it’s actually any better strategery than Homer’s
joe from Lowell
No Flight Suit Day performance can beat K-Lo’s one-handed typing on National Review Online’s "the Corner" blog.
Surly Duff
@ Josh Huesco
Well, you can look at Balloon Juice at work…or, at least, that’s what I have heard.
Dave
@Shinobi:
You really lost two guys to it? You always hear those stories second-hand but never from the actual person.
Just Some Fuckhead
She always looks that way when she’s trying to kill a rival with poison lipstick. And Obama looked relaxed and gracious too because he was wearing antidotal lip gloss, natch.
gopher2b
I think Bill Clinton had specifics in his speeches. Of course, they lasted 5 1/2 hours and everyone complained they were too long.
Karmakin
Re: WoW.
Actually, before you say anything one way or the other…
http://www.danah.org/papers/AAAS2006.html
Read that. It’s probably the most important article on youth culture that I’ve ever seen. The short story on it, is that the importance of online virtual spaces has increased as access to open real social spaces has declined.
WoW is just really really really good as an online virtual space. If you play a lot, you’re probably involved with a guild, have lots of friends to talk to, lots of activities you can do, help people, play as a team (bonding activities)
Of course, lowering grades are not good (although the question has to be asked, is it a chicken or an egg type syndrome.), but in terms of other activities, quite frankly, for a lot of kids those things are just not nearly as accessible. Street hockey? Right. Going to the movies is much more expensive, and is a very short-term activity time wise..go to the movies, maybe get something to eat, then go home and talk via IM/Facebook/MySpace/WoW/Runescape/whatever. That’s the life of the modern teenager.
What did you do when you were a kid? (I’m about 30. So I grew up with the initial crackdown on public spaces). My guess is that you went to the movies, then went down to the park and hung out with all your friends, or went to the drive-in and just sat there and chilled. Or if you’re a bit older, you went to the mall and hung out together.
One thing people don’t realize is that those options don’t exist anymore. Either due to geography (McMansions have been murder on the ability to youth to organize socially), or more common, economic reasons (What you did, is commonly called loitering or trespassing, and is illegal. It’s just enforced now)
So the long story short, is that the Internet and Internet related social activities, instead of destroying a generation as is often believed, saved a generation. It might not be the way you like, ‘cos it’s different. But the alternatives…just are not there.
SixStringFanatic
@BruceK:
You know, I’ve never been completely convinced that running for President was Hillary’s idea, nor her chief ambition. I’m not saying she never thought of it; lots of kids daydream about it at least once or twice and she surely entertained the thought a time or two as one of the early wave of women attending law school, working at law firms, etc, etc. However, she’s been at least dating Bill since her college days and he was always the one with the burning political ambitions. In fact, the first serious mentions of Hillary for Prez were tossed out in the wake of Bill’s impeachment as a sort of "save the Clinton legacy" gambit. That was the overarching theme behind her political choices of the last decade: Run for and serve in the Senate; keep the high-profile in public; wait for the right opportunity to run for President (’04 was too soon, ’12 too late, depending on how ’08 would turn out). There was a moment described in Newsweek’s in-depth Campaign ’08 re-assessment (in my opinion, the only thing Newsweek does right any more), early in the campaign when Hillary looked around her DC home, considered how happy she was there and in the Senate and began to wonder why exactly she would want to give all of that up for a bruising Presidential bid.
So maybe that’s why she rarely looked completely comfortable on the campaign trail last year, and why she seems so much more at ease this year.
Punchy
So are you saying Pelosi raped the Duke Lacrosse team, or the Joker did? So confusing. Please clarify.
The Other Steve
Bobby Jindal for President!
Talks like Sarah Palin, only smarter!
dlw32
I think Pelosi was embarrassing. She looked to me like the kid who’s too eager to please and eventually makes everyone feel uncomfortable. I suppose it must have been exciting to have a good speaker who you mostly agree with politically up in front. But really, someone should have explained to her that it was Obama’s show not hers. She shouldn’t distract attention away from the president.
Biden was also a little distracting, in the opposite way. I swear he was working on a crossword back there. "Oh, is it time to stand again? I almost got 16-down."
SnarkyShark
Hey Juicers, this is bad ass
Apparently Kellogg screwed themselves but good by harshing on young Mr. Phelps.
A juicy statisitc
The Other Steve
@SixStringFanatic: I think you might be right. Bill got far more enraged during her campaign then she herself did.
SnarkyShark
Sorry, here is the link
Ariana’s joint
Tymannosourus
Seconded.
Damned at Random
When did these responses to major speeches begin? Has there ever been a good one? I would have felt sorry for Jindal except for his born in the USA slam? Joke? at the beginning.
Anyhow- delivering a response – that doesn’t really respond- to an empty room doesn’t show anyone to advantage. No feedback from the audience, just a couple of bored cameramen. Yuck. ven the wingnuts were disappointed by Jindal – but I kept thinking of how boring Gov Sebelius (who I love) came across last year in HER response to Bush.
RusS
Shorter Jindal:
I’m brown too!
I mean really, isn’t that all Kenneth’s first few civics homework remarks came to?
gogiggs
Not only do these speeches pretty much never have specifics, when they do have specifics the villagers go into high school level eye-rolling mode about how boring the speeches are and what a chore it is to sit through them, as many of us remember from 2000. (and they shouldn’t have to sit through boring speeches, I mean, it’s not like they’re getting paid to, oh… wait…)
Svensker
@Teak111:
"how long does WOW addiction last"
My son’s grades were affected and his real life social life deteriorated seriously. Then one of his best buds was suspended from school because he started skipping to stay home and play WOW — and this was a popular, happy kid, who had been doing really well in school. My kid finally decided to cold turkey — he announced his retirement and burned all his saved games. He said afterward that it really WAS an addiction and admitted to us that he’d been staying up all night to play and lying to us about his life. He also said that even tho he missed some of his on-line friends, he was much happier after he quit.
If it’s starting to affect his life, then it’s time to intervene. Would you say "he’s got to learn the hard way" if it were drugs or drinking that were out of control?
Shinobi
@Dave
Truly, I would not lie. My college boyfriend started playing about two years into our relationship. Within six months he was up all night playing wow, I couldn’t get him to come to bed. (And I mean "Bed" not like, sleep.) Any free time was spent playing the game. He was in college and I was working, so he slept all day and played WoW all night. Couldn’t even muster the energy to clean the cat box. I moved away for a better job, and when he came to visit me he spent half the weekend playing WoW.
The second guy literally broke up on with me on WoW when I complained that he was so busy playing WoW he wouldn’t come over to my apartment to have sex.
So to sum up: WoW > Sex with real live girl.
I suppose one could argue that maybe there is something wrong with me that makes WoW more appealling. I don’t think thats true, but I don’t really feel like taking a sample to prove my attractiveness and sexual prowess. FWIW the other guys I’ve been with since all think those two were complete idiots.
Conservatively Liberal
Look at the Jindal and Obama word clouds, then laugh your ass off. Jindal’s speech can at best be described as a shotgun blast of words. Obama’s speech was on topic and on target.
Rushublicans have to be in a cold sweat right now. Epic fail after epic fail and no end in sight. Their solution for what ails them? Maverick McCain McCan’t do it. Palin was nonstop flailing and failing. Now they roll out Mr. Jindals’ Neighborhood.
I think the Rushublicans are suffering from a leadership crisis. Nobody can take the helm except an overpaid drug-addled on-air blowhard but they are afraid to be seen with him at the helm.
The Rushublicans have been a nonstop trainwreck and I am loving every minute of it. This Obama guy has them chasing their tails.
TheFountainHead
Re: WoW
(Because I can only say "Jindal Sucked!" so many ways!)
The game can really suck up the hours. You have to look at it like an electronic treadmill, because that’s what it’s designed to be. I’ve found, both with myself and others, that the easiest, least confrontational way to ease someone off of a WoW spree is to get them interested in some other mildly addictive but less treadmill-like video game. Once they get some distance between themselves and WoW they may drop it alltogether themselves. I started playing Team Fortress 2, and then I realized I was spending WAY too much time playing WoW, but I don’t think I would have come to that conclusion without having something else to distract me from it.
gopher2b
Pelosi was terrible. Jumping up and down with that idiot smile, she looked like a ditzy cheerleader after her team scored a basket.
Tsulagi
On mainly the optics, some of my impressions…
Like him, his direction, or not, Obama is a real president.
Obama skillfully phrased his speech in ways that even the Pubs had to stand up and applaud. Yet still they managed to show they’re not afraid to look and act like assholes: sitting on their hands at the mention of SCHIP funding. It’s like they think they have another sure-fire Shiavo winner in opposing health care insurance for children.
The comedy of the night was provided by Jindal. Dude looked and sounded like a zombie pulled out of a bayou after Katrina. This is one of the brightest stars on the Pub bench?
I give Jindal sanity points for not saying he and fellow real Americans want President Obama to fail, but that’s about it. Liked how he’s really on board that expanding the GOP from a regional party thingy. Maybe he’s not yet in the R-tweet loop. At one point complaining about the northerners. Halfway expected him then to say he and fellow real Americans must stand strong in the War of Northern Liberal Aggression.
Jindal/Palin in 2012!
Mike in NC
WTF? Did Michael Gerson write that? It doesn’t even qualify as meaningless boilerplate.
Chinn Romney
That’s an easy one. You make yourself look better by keeping those even less popular than yourself close by. And how the mighty have fallen. One day you’re in the running for the Big House, the next, well, Roland please, walk with me Brother.
Ned R.
@Shinobi:
Good god. Clearly the guy was born a eunuch.
Shinobi
@Karmakin
While I generally agree with you that surfing the internet etc is an important social activity for kids these days (it was for me when I was a teenager) I think WoW addiction goes beyond kids spending a lot of time on the internet.
It is one thing to spend a lot of time on the internet. It is another thing to be constantly wishing that you were playing a video game while you were doing other pleasureable things. , And I really do think that WoW addiction gets to that point for some people. I know lots of people who have struggled with it, as I play the game myself. I also know lots of people who play the game and lead perfectly normal lives where their families, real life friends, and responsibilities are not neglected.
So should kids be allowed to play wow, access the internet, etc? Yes. Should they be allowed to do so at the expense of their real physical lives and futures. No.
Blue Raven
IRT WoW: I am in Second Life, so I have some odd perspective here. I’m realizing that I spend too long inworld these days, but cold turkey is not an option for several reasons. So I get to police myself. I am an adult, however. Your kids are not. I am a believer in the usefulness of the ‘Net as a socialization space. But you can hang out on the cyber corner too long. We all knew kids who put socializing over grades. This is another form of that. Difference being you know where they are.
Ned R.
Meantime a friend has provided the best comment yet in re: some of the lame ‘lol Indian’ jokes lobbed at Jindal:
Mike in NC
They’d have to start off by putting him on "The Biggest Loser" (what irony!) to sweat off about a hundred pounds as part of the makeover. Nah, he’s happy enough in his studio acting like some fascist Jabba the Hutt.
bootlegger
@Teak111: Turn the fucking machine off. You are the parent, act like it.
Napoleon
@SixStringFanatic:
That maybe true, but I know I read somewhere, I am almost certain in a book that was generally on another subject (it was not on the Clintons) that there was a whole group of people who knew her from the real early 70’s that figured she would be the first woman President. So its not like that idea came about in the 90s. Heck, she was politically active as a teenager. Also I have always thought that one, perhaps the primary, attraction she had to him (and why they stayed together after Monica) was that shared passion they had for politics (that is not a critizism).
Contrast Michelle O who appears to have never had any interest in politics outside of her relationship with Barack.
Ned R.
The same friend I invoked just now:
jibeaux
@bootlegger:
Word.
Also, soon you will need a college degree to scatter, smother, and cover. A liberal arts graduate degree will get you as far as Applebee’s. Never too early to plan the least-crappy road ahead.
Punchy
From speeches to Jindal to wingnuts to Paul L. to sex without keyboards. BTW way, is "prowess" ever used in the absence of the word "sexual"?
This blog just FAILS on a daily basis to disappoint.
bago
I got over my MUD addiction when I was a teenager. By letting the novelty of the MUD wear off by the time sex enters the picture, you can avoid a Shinobi type situation. And I’m not talking about a Hayabusa vs Shinobi situation either, unless it’s a bad allegory for Itagaki.
JD Rhoades
They’ve been through the same meatgrinder. Sort of like the way US vets and their German or Japanese or Vietnamese counterparts got along fine years after the war.
JD Rhoades
These kids today….
bootlegger
@SnarkyShark: They’ll blame it on Phelps and say their numbers will rise now that they’re rid of the Evil Pothead. Of course they are wrong, but since when has that stopped Corporate America.
Gus
Holy crap! Even in my sedate middle age I find this hard to believe. For a college age guy, that’s just frightening. Yet WoW is legal and reefer isn’t.
Shinobi
Physical
Athletic
…..
Mathematical?
Karmakin
@Shinobi: The point is that todays kids increasingly don’t really have real physical lives, and can’t have them even if they wanted to.
One thing about the whole MMO thing is that the "addiction" isn’t always an addiction, per se. Just as much, it’s a feeling of social responsibility. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing or whatever. But I find that these discussions really only scratch the surface on what I think is an important, relevant topic.
Edit:An equivalent would be someone who belonged to, lets say a dart club, or a local community theater group who had a competition/practice at 7:00 PM on Tuesdays Thursdays and Fridays. If you’re not able to make it to those scheduled events, you feel responsible because you’re letting people down. In most cases, other than the truly addictive personalities (which are actually a low number from what I can see in WoW and other MMORPGs I’ve played), what looks like addictive personality is simply having a responsibility to a schedule, albeit a virtual one.
jenniebee
@Balconesfault: NPR this morning fact-checked the speech. A lot of really mild stuff, like "well, if you consider the Medicare prescriptions expansion ‘reform’ then that was bigger" and "China’s only ahead of us on some renewable energy fronts, but they are also building a lot of coal-burning electric plants too." The finale was "Obama said that the country that invented the automobile should continue manufacturing automobiles. The first automobile is actually credited to Emile Benz, but I suppose Obama could have been referring to Germany."
If the worst you can ding the guy on is that he claimed the car for the U. S. of A. as part of a rhetorical flourish, then he can’t have done but so bad a job.
bootlegger
@jibeaux: A "liberal arts" degree shouldn’t be seen as a terminal degree since you can’t find many jobs as a liberal artist. But if you’re goal is to start your own business or take over the family’s or go on to professional or graduate school, the well-rounded lib arts degree is actually quite valuable. Lot of ifs.
bootlegger
@Karmakin: I don’t buy this at all. There are endless activities my kids can do even here in the Sticks of Kentucky. I could easily fill every afternoon with some kind of activity or another. From sports to service organizations to all kinds of extracurricular school activities.
My kids get a limited amount of computer time (and believe me, they’d be on all the time if I let them) and their mother and I control the power, literally.
Shinobi
@Karmakin
They don’t have physical lives? They don’t have a house they live in, a bedroom they could clean, parents who might want to spend time with them, pets, homework, class projects, school sports… shall I go on?
These are the things I’m talking about neglecting. I’m not talking about "oh he decided to play wow instead of go to the movies, or talk on the phone or go hang out on the corner" I’m talking about people who make crazy irrational decisions that destroy their lives and futures to play a video game.
I get what you’re saying, I WAS an internet kid. I was online before it was cool. AOL was probably 80% of my social life.
But I still got good grades and fulfilled family obligations, and did what I needed to do.
If a kid was spending too much time hanging out on the street corner shooting the shit with their buddies you would keep them home. And if they are spending too much time hanging out in Azeroth killing gnomes with their buddies, you should pull them out.
Michael D.
From the Not too well thought out images department…
bootlegger
@Shinobi: Yes, I left out all the household responsibilities as well as simply just going outside to play.
Gus
It certainly can be. Study of liberal arts can teach one to think critically and to write passably, both of which can be invaluable in any number of occupations.
Shinobi
@Karmakin
To respond to your edited point. It is NOT the same. What if dart club, or whatever, was going on all the time. And not only was dart club all the time but were always 100 people there to play with you. And by playing you get special rewards, and the longer you play darts the harder those rewards are to get, but the bigger the payoff is. And sometimes you ahve to spend hours and hours playing just so you can get something that lets you shoot at a certain target.
I play the game, I know how it works. It is like the best dart club you can possibly freaking imagine. You could live at the dart club and never be bored. Does that mean the dart club is evil and wrong and that everyone gets addicted to it? No, but it does mean that people sometimes need help being reminded that there is life outside the dart club.
BDeevDad
Anyone care to guess the over/under on the largest attendance for any of the "Tea Parties" occurring on Friday.
jenniebee
@Teak111: In my experience with WoW, "addiction" isn’t just a euphemism. My hubby and I both played, and when we were away from home we would very seriously express withdrawal misery.
If you can bear to do it and you really want to break them of it without a direct confrontation about the game itself, my advice is to drop your high-speed internet and get dial-up instead for a while. Tell them it’s a cost-cutting thing, because of the economy. Once you’ve played it fast, playing with a bad connection is painful.
Also, a transition game can help – that’s how I got off of it. I know it sounds weird, but if they like Civ or Sims or something that is offline, the slower speed combined with a game they’ve already played or that just won’t be as all-enveloping can help.
If nothing else works, just hope for serious guild drama. If you don’t have a good guild, it’s a pretty miserable, pointless game.
Ed in NJ
As much as I’m enjoying the universal derision and (at least temporary) demise of the GOP’s rock star, this idea that the speech was good but the delivery was the problem is cracking me up.
It’s as if the Republicans know this was an unmitigated disaster, but the least amount of damage is caused by chalking it up to Jindal not being ready for prime time.
They should thank the heavens that SNL is on break until 3/7 because the writers would be working up a Jindal speech in the next show opening sketch. It’s comedy gold. They could even bring in Jack McBrayer to play the role.
Karmakin
@Shinobi: Oh to be sure. And actually I do play it. (We raid Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights from 7-11) And it’s mostly families I play with, who play together.
There are some people who are outright addicted to be sure. And it sounds like those kids are. But IMO that’s kind of the minority. And I see a lot of people who mistake that sort of scheduled play for addiction.
Why wouldn’t they go get drunk with me, they’re playing that stupid game instead? Well. I made a commitment to show up on this night, and I’m going to follow this commitment through. To the drunk, it looks like addiction. To the player, it looks like a dart club or community theater group.
Karmakin
And to both Bootlegger and Shinobi. Go read that article I linked. Really. I linked that for a reason.
Those things you mentioned are CONTROLLED events, with full supervision/negative reinforcement for bad actions, whatever. What kids are lacking these days are what are called "Public/Private spaces", which are basically places in public where kids can get together and have relative privacy to do what they do.
There’s no lacking to those events, if you want to control everything that they do. But kids want those public/private spaces, and they’ll find them wherever they can.
Karmakin
One final thing. I’ve done the MMO withdrawal thing before. Like I said, I’ve pretty much played them all :)
It’s not withdrawl for the gameplay itself. It’s withdrawal for the social interaction, and it’s no different than the withdrawal I felt when my MTG group scattered to the winds (I still miss it, years later), or for my rugby playing days, or HS band, or whatever.
I kinda miss the activity. I REALLY miss my friends and the social dynamic.
Like I said. My big pet peeve with this is that there’s a lot more there there than it seems at first glance.
Or online groups.
I miss the U2 community on Dalnet
I miss the #MTG community on EfNet
I miss Subspace. Especially A Small Warzone and Warzone
I miss the early days of the blogosphere
I have withdrawl from all those things. It pains me those contacts and friends that have been lost to the winds, both in real life and virtual.
bootlegger
@BDeevDad: Actual or claimed? If actual I’ll say less than 500 tea-baggers. If claimed, then 5000 tea-baggers.
jibeaux
@bootlegger:
Oh, sure, I’ve got one and I appreciate being well-rounded. Then again, a reasonably bright and motivated high schooler could complete half a liberal arts degree, if our system were more flexible at allowing people to stop working on material they had mastered and move on. Why on earth did my high school make you devote an entire year to learning to type? I once read a pretty fascinating, and very convincing to me, argument for scrapping our K-12 educational system and replacing it with a preK-10 one. Basically, you’d have universal public education from ages 3 to 16. His point was mainly that for the bright and motivated kids, the last year or two of high school is stagnation time, and for the unmotivated it is killing time time, and that most people know by 16 whether they want to try to pick up a trade, go to college, etc., so just let them get on with it. We’ve artificially postponed adolescence long enough. That plus we’re wasting the youngest years when kids are most interested in learning. Anyway, maybe more suitable for another open thread, but I thought it had some promise.
bootlegger
@Karmakin: I know the data and I’ve seen a couple presentations by people studying the phenomenon, I get it. What I’m not buying is that there aren’t things for kids to do that don’t involve the computer. I coach soccer and before and after practice they huddle together and do their thing, they also do it before and after school.
Our old stomping grounds may be disappearing, but replacing it with virtual crap isn’t a healthy substitute. Maybe you should check the research on that.
Fencedude
@Michael D.:
Michael, thats a photoshop. And a really, really old one at that.
BDeevDad
@bootlegger: I was going to take the under for anything over 500. So I’d agree. Also, I am stealing the tea-bagger name.
bootlegger
@jibeaux: I agree with that to some extent, though I’m not sure that kids, or their parents/teaches, know for sure which kids are destined for what by age 16.
Germany has a system that sorts kids like this and its great for the those who get to go to the academic schools. But I met a kid on a flight back from Frankfurt who had gone to the "trade" finishing school and learned how to do landscaping. Not a bad gig but I asked him if he was planning to learn design and he said that no, even though he wanted to, his school was about doing landscaping, not designing it. I asked him if he could go back to school and learn it and he said that he couldn’t because of the type of secondary school he went to. So my fear about this kind of system is that it is too strictly limiting and it channels kids into a path that they are not allowed out of later on.
What I do agree with is that age-graded education is bullshit. Advancement should be based on aptitude, not your birthday.
bootlegger
@BDeevDad: Excellent, I’m hoping it catches on! Most of the morans won’t even know they are being mocked.
Shinobi
Karmakin,
I mostly agree with you. I don’t get why you’re being so defensive.
I do kindof disagree with your whole social withdrawl theory. I frequently have "withdrawl" type issues with books, and other non social games that I don’t have with WoW. Maybe I just prefer to be left the fuck alone…
I think you need to realize there are lots of personality types. While it is about socialization for you, for other people it’s about the next peice of loot or the next achievement. And for those people it may not be as harmless as it is for you.
Mike in NC
First they said, "Let Reagan be Reagan".
In 2008 it became, "Let Palin be Palin".
In 2012 we can expect them to say, "Let Jindal be Jindal".
They just don’t get it.
jibeaux
@bootlegger:
Yeah, the European system where it seems like you take a test at age 11 and are then locked into a career path for life is also weird and to be avoided. It’s kind of caste-y. But I’m not sure it necessarily follows from the idea of sending the younguns on at 16. As soon as Obama asks me for my thoughts on major educational reform, I’ll flesh out a better plan. :)
I’m no good at the over/under type stuff, I’m one of those people who can’t figure out what the last person’s bid on Price is Right should be. What can I tell you, I spent a year learning to type. So would y’all recommend 400 or 600, strategerically thinking?
John S.
Fixed that for you, Paul L.
bootlegger
@jibeaux: I’d be in favor of giving 16 year olds more learning options, so they could explore apprenticeships in trades, or see if they are better suited to the skills needed in various white-collar professions, or have the aptitude for a career in the sciences or medicine, or even if they have some artistic aptitude that should be nurtured. But these should be choices rather than tracts so that kids can change their minds and perhaps try something else.
TenguPhule
Fixed.
Because if they’ll submit one crossdressing authoritan, they’ll submit another.
Comrade Luke
@Teak111
I used to work in the video game industry and I can say with absolute certainty that WoW is addictive, with the same tell-tale signs as drug addiction.
I tried it out once and got "into" it, but not nearly to the extent of the people around me. I just couldn’t justify spending that much time on playing a video game. I have a much bigger problem with the internet and political news in general though. I need to work on that :)
A co-worker of mine was always complaining about how his marriage was falling apart, and how all his wife ever did was sit and read books. In the mean time, he would spend all night, every night playing WoW. He’d show up late for work, sometimes take sick days, etc. And of course spent all weekend at it. I suggested that maybe if he’d stop playing his marriage might improve, but he never did.
Another co-worker of mine had a deal: he promised to always reserve one night a week with his wife and small child, and in return he would spend all weekend playing WoW. He ended up running a guild…and having surgery on both forearms. And he’s a programmer!
He’s had to curtail his play, but he was also unable to leave his job because he worried about not being covered by insurance at his new job because of his "pre-existing" condition. The guy walks around with braces on both of his forearms, all day.
BTW, beware the person who says they "cut back". It’s like drugs – you might cut back a little at first, but after a short break you’re right back into it.
The main thing I learned from working in the video game industry is that I’m never going to have them in the house if/when I have kids. Everything they say about them is true, and there are better ways to use your free time.
Just take it away. I’m sure it’ll be painful at first, but you have to do it.
Punchy
God damn this is frightening. Withdrawl from a vid game?
In my teens, I was either on a bike, in a pool, on a court, or in a Calc text. I just cannot fathom how peeps decide that being online is more phun than being in real life.
Scary shit, this WOW, apparently.
Xenos
@jibeaux: I may be moving to Europe in a year or so, and it has taken a lot of work to figure the school systems for my kids. The vocational options seem to be much better developed, which results in a work force that is well prepared. Coming from a preppy American background I am surprised at how hard the system works to divert kids off the University preparation track, but since the University are so heavily subsidized I guess that is necessary.
In any case, it is clear that our educational system needs as much radical reorganizing as our medical system.
horatius
@Shinobi: Is that you wifey? Coz only you could talk about it so passionately for so long.
Egilsson
My name is Egilsson, and I play WoW too.
Shinobi, will you marry me?
Being a middle-aged guy who likes playing an on-line game is not really an express ticket to a rich love life.
Actually, there’s an awful lot of ignorant judgment about this. Apparently it would be better if I sat on my fanny watching PBS, or I should go jogging. Heck, I do get out and hike. But I have fun gaming, and it keeps me connected with my oldest friends, plus my guild is full of people I’ve been gaming with for 10 years. Sometimes it’s not isolating, but connecting.
That said, it’s still not real life, and I’ve seen it overwhelm people. Some people are not happy with their lives, and to them, life in WoW is preferable. That’s not good, and it’s not sustainable.
BTW, Obama rocked, and Jindal sucked.
Svensker
Nope, already heard it this morning. Apparently, ol’ Bobby isn’t good on a teleprompter (like some people I could name…) and so it wasn’t fair. Harumph.
Also!
Phoebe
Hi Karmakin,
I agree with you and everyone who disagrees with you. I agree with this:
https://entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/54902279.html
It’s short!
Also, I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the homeschooling/unschooling philosophy in the last month, which has made me more sympathetic to the internet, but there is no substitute for true interaction with people, trees, bikes, etc.
WOW 2 cents: cold turkey
passerby
@Will Danz:
I agree. He knows that people
1) are tired of petty political hackery and
2) are waking up to the fact that the internet enables them to participate by being able to influence any election thru donations–money talks. From the comfort of my home here in E TN, I can impact an election going on in MN.
More and more, Elected officials are forced to weigh this into the equation when planning their election/re-election campaigns. Less and less are they able to bullshit their constituencies with the same old platitudes. It’s sorta: "The rising tide raises all boats" effect.
And his delivery was loaded with charm and sincerity. Something that you either got or you don’t got (Eric Cantor).
So yeah, he spoke directly to the American people to great effect.
Hob
I think all the comments about online gaming addiction are pretty much on target. Yeah, it’s a kind of social interaction and that’s rewarding — but yeah, it can wipe out other social interaction which would normally be more fun. That looks contradictory, but the thing for me is, the game(*) is something I can do when my brain isn’t hitting on all cylinders. If I’m mildly depressed, or if I’m having the kind of ADD moment/hour/day where I can’t filter or focus enough to follow a real-life conversation, then hanging out at the bar or even following my lovely girlfriend to bed is going to feel less inviting or downright threatening. But I can still log on and play the game when I’m in those states. It’s a way to avoid just sitting there and feeling lonely & unable to do anything. And if I stay up all night doing that, then the next day I may be a little more tired & depressed, so the cycle goes on.
(*) I’m not a big gamer, but in my experience the same thing goes for blogs/message boards — and to a lesser extent just farting around on the computer, programming or whatever, when there are no other humans involved, although there’s less of a reward there so I get tired faster.
passerby
@Egilsson:
Eglisson, no need to make apologies or justify how you spend your time.
I used to feel guilty about spending hours sitting in front of my computer playing mahjongg but came to realize that the real monkey on my back was the nagging sense that I was supposed to be doing something more social or more "active" or more meaningful.
If I want to to spend hours
folding origami shapes
or watching 6 hours of The Wire
or drinking 10 beers
or gorging on eclairs
or eating bacon everyday
or furminating my cat until he’s nearly hairless
or not conforming to anyone else’s expectations,
then by god that’s what I do–without excuses or apologies. What needs to get done in my life, gets done and if it doesn’t get done it means that it didn’t need to get done. I get to live and learn at my own speed.
And so it is my wish for others that they do with their time what they want and I hope they enjoy their freedoms as much as I enjoy mine.
Cyrus
Wow. No pun intended. I always worry about my own World of Warcraft habit and I always stop worrying when I see discussions like this. To my parents and friends, yeah, it sounds excessive, and I’m not happy with my social life. I don’t get out much. I often stay up a bit later than I should if I want to get a full night’s sleep. I think I’ve even been 10 minutes or so late for work due to WoW, say, half a dozen times or so.
In a vacuum, or compared to certain of my family and friends, that sounds bad. But having a girlfriend and passing up sex for WoW? Not just staying up an hour or two later than I would on my own, but getting no sleep? And not just being a few minutes late here and there, but completely missing work or classes, which I guess hasn’t been mentioned here but I know I’ve seen it elsewhere? I’m not that bad about this game, and even at my worst I never have been.
Teak111, Shinobi’s exactly right. (No, I’m not saying this to suck up to the avowed female gamer here. I swear!) Use the parental controls. There are plenty of people for whom it’s just a hobby, and plenty of people for whom it’s an unhealthy addiction by any reasonable definition of the term, and sometimes it’s hard to tell, but setting hourly limits seems more than reasonable for a teen.
Besides, haven’t you always wanted to use that "as long as you live under my roof" line? I’m not a parent, but I imagine that would be one of the few joys of being one between the ages of 10 and 18. :)
Mary
okay I usually try to avoid it, but I visited Malkin’s blog on Jindal’s speech…
We’ve done it folks. The senate will have its 60 votes by the next election.
Not only were there absolutely no facts involved, those people believe statements like (paraphrased),"Katrina was the dems fault and the Repubs were elected after public outrage over how it was handled" Yes, that’s Hurricane Katrina-the one from 2005!
They are all just mad Palin wasnt picked because they think should would have done a better job. Well she may be a good idiot-inspirer, but I think we all know Palin is a loser when it comes to attracting independents and moderates.
It is so backwards there is is laughable; I feel strongly that some conservative(s), somewhere went Oh my God! What am I doing with my life?!
KRK
@passerby:
I’m glad I’m not the only one.
Paula
1.) … Also, there was a very intimate look between her and Obama as he approached the stage. There was something about the nonverbals there that seemed to suggest Obama really trusts her. Watch it for yourself.
Kinda surprising to see them get to that point so quickly. The conspirator/homie handshake. He did that with Mikulski after he signed with Ledbetter act, and she gave him a thump on the shoulder that would have toppled most people; and then with Biden after he got to the stage. I would call it a slap-and-grip if that didn’t sound totally dirty, hehe. (He usually reserves it for his young staff and BFFs since I doubt that most middle-aged people who don’t know him would be ready for POTUS giving them the physical equivalent of "Party in the house, what?!")
Mama Pelosi was vaguely embarrassing but she seemed so genuinely happy and proud like he was her son or nephew or something. Did you catch the little double handholding? Crazy.
Obama looks so young that it’s hard not to read anything other than a family dynamic when he stoops to give Ginsburg a hug. Are they actually close?
Shinobi
Horatius:
I know I am not your wifey because if I were you would know better than to call me that. Heh.
Egilsson,
While I’m flattered, my boyfriend would probably be pissed. Plus, he’s already moved in and everything, and I"m too busy playing WoW to kick him out. But I do know at least one middle aged woman who likes video games and is single (doesn’t play WoW though.) So there is hope!!