Overused Internet Memes

We’ve all heard them. Some of us have even been lucky enough to be present at their conception, we have seen them thrive, and grow, and had a good laugh about them every now and again.

What is a meme you ask? In simple terms : It’s an inside joke. An initially obscure reference or idea that with a little proper execution, spreads like fire. More often than not, the fire is uncontrollable. The Internet is full to bursting with these little sayings or images, and most of us have a good laugh about it. But others, rape the living shit out of it.

Excuse me for the crude language, but I believe I can’t convey the message properly in any other way. Let me present to you three words that have long been memes, that have been violated in every way, shape and form :

Epic, win, and fail.

Often used in conjunction, these three words would become a humorous way to describe a certain situation, and the masters of the memes would toss around well executed usages of them. Unfortunately the word often spreads to those who can’t handle the complexity of creating a decent joke. And thus it begins ; An orgy of misused, overused, and misrepresented jokes, spin-offs, and terrible anecdotes based on these memes. It happens when these memes leak out to more mainstream websites. Then the jokes get force fed to mainstream users. Most main stream users have the I.Q. equal to the current gas prices (Decimal included, don’t kid yourself). These words used to mean something. When a song was epic, it meant it was an epic, not just really good. When someone failed, they actually failed. Now there’s hundreds of pictures of a cat barely making a jump, with the word fail plastered all over it, or something of the like. Wins… Now those used to mean something. You would win when you could taste the tears of your enemy. When your clever guile has pulled through for you, and you have assumed the title of victor. Unfortunately because of the poor use/overuse of these words, they are not only losing meaning, but gaining in popularity among the numb-minded, sometimes extending to the media.

Who is to blame here? As aforementioned, mindless drones who spout said memes constantly are partly to blame. But the media and those who seek to exploit these memes, are doing most of the violent god-forsaken sodomy. For Example :

I Can Has Cheezburger

Most of you have probably heard of this site. Some of you may be offended at me referring to it as a breeding ground for digital-sodomy. But Unfortunately, it very much is. The owner of the site, has not been satisfied with the fame the media gave him ( The media loves to stay in touch with things that are hip, and cool! ), and he continues on making more sites that spout dead memes. The media coverage he gets, allows more of the average Joe to talk about the latest lolcat over at the water cooler, while a 10% sane population of the office will groan in despair at his pathetic attempt at being “in the know”.

There’s nothing we can do to stop the spread of these dead memes now. We can try but the idiots won’t listen. It’s very much a matter of ignorance. Something that I think has always been a very large problem on the Internet anyway.

I had to get this little rant off of my chest. So that’s that.

Fuck Censorship

That’s a pretty cliché title, huh?

I am not a big fan of censorship in any form, I really do believe that it violates our freedom of speech.

Censoring music should be a crime. If the artist felt the need to include something, then there was a reason for it. I don’t think I can stress how important lyrics are. They weigh the song with meaning, and it threads the music together. The vocals in a  song are the closest connection to the listener. It is a medium we are all familiar with, and played using an instrument we all have.

Would we paint black lines over Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus”? We would not dare! It would be a travesty, an unheard of act of disrespect toward art around the world. Then why do we feel it’s acceptable to do so to a song? In fact, the entire premise of censorship in music is ridiculous. Content is being created constantly, whether or not it is acceptable for the public is a one way road. Yes or No. The answer shouldn’t be “Yes, but we need to take out this word, or this image.” Is it to protect our children? Are we too lazy and irresponsible to do that ourselves? Is it to prevent offense? Nobody is forced to listen to music, if they are offended, they can turn it off. If their kids are repeating vulgarities they’ve heard in music, their parents can turn it off. Again, it all goes back to good parenting. Your child will pick these words up sooner or later. It’s your responsibility to ensure that they understand when it is and is not appropriate to use them.

Aside from the obvious assault on the meaning, feel and emotion of the song, censoring it also destroys the rhythm. The most obtrusive methods of censoring music ( beeps or blanks ) halt the music to include their own sound ( or lack thereof ) . The effect is a watered down, more mediocre version of music being presented to the audience. This is especially damaging considering the audience is the most important critic.

This rant was inspired by Radiohead’s popular song “Creep” on the album “Pablo Honey”. I am an avid Radiohead fan, and as such, I own the aforementioned album. After purchasing it, I decided to give it a listen. The song “Creep” is track two. All of a sudden, I hear it again. I look at the cd player, and it blinks back at me ‘Track 13′ mockingly. ‘That’s odd’ I think to myself, until I realize that the version I began listening to was the clean version. The line “You’re so fucking special” was changed to “You’re so very special”. Groans all around! I was outraged, the entire song had a different feel to it, why would they even bother putting that on the album? ( I later discovered that it’s only the US version that comes with it. ) Not only did this mean that I had two copies of basically the same song, but that everytime the cd restarted they were one track apart. This means that if I’m not paying attention ( usually the case ) then It seems like I’ve heard the song about a thousand times. Fuck you censorship, now I can’t listen to Creep anymore.

Music Page Update

The song “Kiss” has been added to the Music page. More of me jamming with myself using the layering technique. Just one fingerpicking acoustic track with a lead track on top of it. Ther fingerpicking track is a peice that I’ve had for a long time. It had just been sitting there, not doing anything. I’m aware I’m pretty damn late on an update, I’ll get right on it.

To Hell with Linux!

Easy now, Linux fan boys. Read the article before you start flaming me.

We all know that people don’t like to conform. Everyone likes to be unique and individual. Everyone wants to be special. That’s all fine and good until you encroach either on my good time or common sense. Now I’m no Microsoft lover either. Windows Genuine Advantage, IE, Vista, etc. There’s a lot of crap flying onto the production line with the Microsoft logo on it. When it comes to Mac, I have never worked on it (Although I would love to try), so I don’t have much say in that category. I cannot say I’m a big fan of Linux.

This is what started this post. I read this article, and began writing a comment, which was getting too long, so I decided this would be easier. The article basically states that the author’s stepdaughter’s computer contracted a nasty, crippling virus. Even after re-installing XP, there were strange random reboots. He goes on to say that he installed Mandriva Spring 2008 on her PC, configured it to work with her Ipod, and allow her to browse the internet and use Instant Messaging. And they all lived happily ever after.

So that’s the basis of his argument? If you need an operating system to browse the internet and use IMs and to use it with your iPod, then by all means choose Linux. But if you seriously want to consider doing anything actually worthwhile (Read: Work;Anything else) Then stick with XP. But have I missed something? Of course, there’s still the issue with the virus. I’m going to say this, and it might sound a bit harsh, but  If you’re not competent enough to keep your computer clean using XP, then by all means choose Linux. All it takes is a decent firewall, a strong antivirus program (not AVG as the girl in the article did), and a general knowledge of what not to click on/download/do. I haven’t had a virus in years, and I happily run Windows XP.

My experience with Linux was short lived. Out of curiosity I installed Linux Ubuntu. I was under the impression that one of Linux’s gimmicks was it’s ease of use, especially for inexperienced user. I wouldn’t call myself an inexperienced user, and it was crazy even for me. All of a sudden I was installing from a command prompt, no Graphical User Interface? And what the heck is a kernel? LILO? Grub? Huh? So after a bit of frustration, I get it up and running. At this point I spent some time looking around. I could not really understand the directory structure (Where is my removable media?!) and most of the free programs provided were open-source and already available for windows. I opened up the media player, to test out if everything worked. Oh! There’s already a sample video for me to test.

Oh. The audio isn’t working. Well maybe if I fumble with the volume controls … No still nothing. A google later, I figured out that I had to take special steps to make Ubuntu work with my sound card. This involved the command prompt, again. Awesome interface design guys, or lack thereof. In some backwards directory, There were some backwards settings that had to be changed. The audio now worked. I worked with this for about a week, until I realized, what did I really GAIN? It certainly wasn’t ease of use. It wasn’t hardware compatibility. Not the catalogue of software that came with it. I knew that I could hande my own security, and I missed being able to use the wide array of programs available for Windows only. So XP came back and I’m much better. RedHat was a little better; it’s known for it’s security. In fact, it’s so secure, my stepfather forgot the administrator’s password and we were never able to use it again.

If you’re a novice user, or you don’t use a computer extensively, then by all means choose Linux. If you’re setting up a server, then by all means choose Linux. But if you can take care of your computer, choose Windows. If you use a computer extensively, choose Windows. If you’re a gamer, choose Windows.

If the tone is mean spirited, I apologize, I’m just trying to get my opinion across. I guess it’s not fair I use all my time flaming Linux. Expect another “constructive critique” soon. Vista, you’re next.

Sex in Society

Oh crap, a teenager talking about sex. Let’s be adults now shall we?

As human beings, we are still animals. Animals have survival instincts and we are no exception. It seems though we have learned to suppress these instincts in order to keep up with our no-bullshit, all-business lifestyles. I’m not implying that we are a sexless race (we both know that’s not true), but in relation to everything else, it’s sort of swept under the carpet.

I believe that the society’s ostracism of sex begins in abstinence until marriage. I want to make it clear that I have no personal problems with this decision, nor do I believe that it is necessarily a bad thing. I do disagree with it though. I believe sex is a big part of a relationship, and it is important to know you are sexually compatible with your partner before taking the big plunge. Nevertheless, abstinence remains a popular choice and because of the way it is expressed. It is quite dangerous, The idea of abstinence makes it seem like sex is wrong if it is between two people who are not married. It is being taught to children at a younger and a more impressionable age, and it’s leaving them with this idea.

An alternative to teaching abstinence, is furthering ignorance. This has become popular, because it isn’t based in religion, making it more difficult to criticize. This practice includes lying to children (the stork, or any other ridiculous fables) and hiding sex from them, and society as a whole. It’s kept quiet and toned down in all forms of media, it isn’t discussed openly like other topics, and it is seen as a taboo.

The reality is, sex is as natural as eating, breathing and sleeping. We naturally feel attraction and lust because they are symptoms to our instincts. Our survival instincts tell us to survive, by furthering the species and reproducing. I’m not saying we should be doing it in the streets, but we should not hang with mouths agape when our children ask us about it. With the way things are today, kids are being exposed to everything quickly. And remember, if little Jimmy knows about it, then so do all of his friends, and eventually the whole elementary school. It’s the natural flow of information driven by a curious mind.

While I’m discouraging lying to your children, it is at your discretion. If you’re middle-schooler can’t keep it in their pants (It’s scary, I know, but I’ve read/heard about it) maybe they do need the stork story. I guess it all depends on your parenting. I’ve always been sexually responsible, thanks to a couple of people who share my last name and live with me. Let’s take a second to talk about parenting. Now I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, but I’ve seen good parents, I’ve seen bad parents, and I’ve seen what happens as a result of both. If you can’t comfortably talk to your kids (I’m talking about 13+ here) about anything, including sex, you have not developed a fully successful relationship with your child.

I can discuss sex with either of my parents without a problem, and have been able to since I can remember. I’m not a baby daddy, but I’m no virgin, I’m just not an idiot. Don’t misinterpret this as an invitation to question their activities, that’s exactly the kind of invasion of privacy that draws them away from you. Personally, privacy is pretty high up on my list. Don’t push things, Don’t ask too many questions, it’s just conversation.

And I feel I should mention this. If you’re seething with hatred right now, because you believe that kids should not be exposed to such things at a young age, you’ve got a pretty big blind spot you’re stubbornly ignoring. Society does throw a sheet over sex, but not just any sheet. The sheet is red, it’s silky, it’s mysterious and exciting, and every now and again, the sheet slips just a little bit. What I’m saying is society hides sex, but it hints at it. There’s always a late night movie playing with a little bit of it, or a suggestive ad, or somebody lets a word slip and every kid within a mile asking everyone they know what it is. Trust me, my little brother (10 years) asks me some about things I never imagined he could hear about.

Basically: Be respectful, be easygoing, be smart, know your kid before he/she comes home with your invitation to their shotgun wedding.

All images from sxc.hu (the stock.xchng)

• The Girl
• The Nut and Bolt

Music Page Update

Hello all, Expect a new post soon. But, for the time being, I’ve created a music page. This will showcase my music. I just added the song “Evening Breeze”. It’s an easy-listener; An acoustic song just shy of about 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Anyway it’s got two guitar parts (a general lead and rhythm, recorded separately). There is also a little ambient track underlying the whole thing…Wind, Maybe a car or two (very quiet though), birds; the ambient track is easiest to hear towards the end, when the guitar stops. If you listen closely, you may also notice a bit of percussion (If you can call banging on the wood percussion). Finally towards the end, the percussion is complemented by a very quiet finger snapping. Trendy!

P.S. My favorite part is at about 2:07

The Story Thus Far…

Music is an interesting medium, it is one of many ways to passionately convey a message, or an emotion. Good music takes an emotion (or several) and transposes it into a style that appeals to the desired audience to make them understand the emotion. Great music takes an emotion and floods you with it, especially when you can relate to it. If you’re under the influence of a certain emotion, music can enhance the intensity of it. One thing that I do know is that the relationship between band mates is quite different than any other one.

Approximately 2 years ago I had began telling everyone that I wanted to get guitar lessons. I loved music, and I loved creating things; it just seemed to make sense. It was one of those things that I wanted to do eventually, but required some moderately big steps that I never had the guts to take. My father played guitar and he tried to teach me when I was younger, but for a while he was just too busy. So he did the next best thing, he gave me his guitar as a gift. It wasn’t necessarily great. In fact, it was almost as old as me! It cost about a hundred dollars, or 2364.67 Rubles¹ where it was purchased, in the USSR. I started taking lessons in June, or perhaps July. My teacher was a delightful man probably in his early 50s, with a friendly and patient approach to teaching. To be honest, I could not have asked for a better teacher. At first he taught me the basics, and they proved to be mind-numbingly boring, but it only got better. My father’s guitar didn’t last long. One night I left it lying next to my bed, on the floor and In the haste of the early morning, I jumped out of bed, and landed on the neck of the guitar … SNAP! And in a second, it was useless. I sat and stared at it for a while in disbelief. I felt terrible. I felt like my father would be furious, I felt like my mother would be furious, and I felt like an idiot for just leaving it on the floor. My father wasn’t pissed, he was just glad I was playing. My mother was indifferent. Now I was presented with a problem, I needed a guitar. My guitar teacher recommended several good brands of guitars : Taylor, Gibson, Ibanez. I asked to try his guitar out, and he handed it to me : it was a seagull. I had never heard of a seagull before, and I began to play it. Immediately I noticed the low action, the look, the feel, and the perfect sound, warm and mellow. The next lesson I had a brand new Seagull Series 6 Acoustic Guitar that I could call mine, and I could not have been happier.

Lessons continued for another year or so. My good friend Cody saw that I was playing guitar and picked it up as well, but it seemed as if his passion was in another instrument. Shortly thereafter, Cody expressed his desire to play bass guitar which I always assumed was due to his appreciation of the bass player from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Flea. He ordered a Red Gibson Thunderbird, and a dream hatched. Me and Cody would always spend a lot of time talking on the phone. We would usually discuss our friends, music, basically anything. But at this point we were fixated on one thing : We wanted to start a band. We wanted to go up on stage, and play out hearts out. We wanted to give people the feeling that so many artists have given us. Me and Cody became entirely serious about this goal, and we began our search for those who were equally serious. We experimented with several musicians, most of them friends, and had some good times. One thing we always knew was that we had a similar playing style, and had no problems free-styling.

Soon our friend Scott told us that he was getting a drum set, and starting to learn drums. Me and Cody saw this as a golden oppurtinity and asked him if he would mind joining us. He heartily agreed and we began to get together on a weekly basis. At first it was great and it seemed like we finally found what we were missing, they really helped add a large amount of structure to the music. But after a month or two Cody and I would spend the rest of the night frustrated, having long discussions about what we would do. After we exhausted every other resource, we concluded that it was not working out. There were several problems that I don’t see the need to mention, as well as a large difference in musical interest. All in all, it isn’t fair to rule him out as an influence. The little amount of time he did spend playing with us, He helped us evolve our style and sound greatly. He is still a good friend of ours.

When it all comes down to it, we cling on to one side of our brain, because it’s the stronger one. Either we pursue a more creative path, such as art, or music. Others pursue something less creative, more practical, more structural. There are often things that both parties can’t seem to understand about each other and perhaps they never will. For example, I know somebody (much older than myself) that seems to display no interest in music. I never see him listening to music, and he never seems interested in it. Personally, I feel like he has no soul. Then again, I’m sure there are plenty of people like that who shrug that kind of thing off. Being a musician, music plays a huge part in my life, my philosophy, and my relationships.

I have always said, “Friends can’t always be band mates, and band mates can’t always be friends”. People who create music together, must be able to connect on a much deeper level than normal people. Because the process of creating music is so personal, band mates must be comfortable with each other to create good music. They must be able to understand each other. Although getting along is a huge factor, some people just plain don’t have chemistry together. It is difficult to find someone who you can sit down with and just jam; but when you do find someone, it’s simply incredible.

¹ Exchange rates as of now.

Judging a Book by it’s Cover

Let’s imagine, for a moment, the following scenario.

A couple of books are nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Let’s imagine that the people awarding the prize are the entire American populace. What if 82% of these people loved Drama, and would refuse to vote for anything else. Now Let’s say that there is one book that pleases this specific audience, one that has a really attractive cover. Everyone looks at it, reads the blurb on the back, and doesn’t really bother to look into any others. It wins the prize, but turns out that there were more books that were much more deserving of the prize.

So, it’s a bit of a stretch, but this is how we treat our politicians. (By the way according to census in 2001, 82% of the nation is christian) I understand it is human nature to judge someone by how they look physically, but we go much farther than the basic human nature. Politicians have become celebrities. Now, I will never understand what is so fascinating about celebrities that has people gawking at them, and following their every move and their every decision. It’s also amusing when the phrase gets thrown around, “They’re just like us!” You can’t possibly mean they have lives, problems, feelings and taxes? Nonsense! We, the people, refuse to believe it. But I digress; This is exactly how we treat our politicians. I think Americans need to get back in touch with politics. The point of an election is to choose a person who has the best plan for our current situation, someone who has a good idea of what they are going to do, and someone level-headed with a minimum bias. Unfortunately, it’s become a disarray of discrimination.

If Obama is black, does that make him any less able of becoming a leader? If Hillary is a woman, are her ideas invalidated? Ridding the world of discrimination is an age old goal that may never come true, but we could at least try to not discriminate where it counts, when choosing a president. It’s all fine and good that you choose someone who you can relate to on a personal, or religious level, but that does not mean that they will make the best choices for our country.

Politicians have lives too, they make mistakes, and they have problems. People feel that they have the right to judge politicians based on these small mistakes that anyone would make. Take for example, Bill Clinton; A fantastic president, and an overall great guy. So he got into a little fling with an intern. Yes, it’s wrong, but is it any of our business? No, he shouldn’t have to go in front of a court and try to defend himself. If this happened to any of us, we would settle it with our significant other, and not with the American public. And it sure as hell wouldn’t affect our career. Unfortunately, because of what the media did to it, and the way our society works, it was blown up into a huge scandal.

Lastly, I come to the separation of church and state. If we keep religion out of schools and the workplace, What place do they have in our politics? It seems that if you put two candidates that were exactly alike next to each other, but one of them being christian and one being atheist, the christian would win. Why? Because of the majority of the United States is christian, and unfortunately they believe that a non-christian candidate is a non-moral candidate. I guess I’m asking for the ignorant to become informed, the stubborn to listen, and the frightened to take risks. Maybe I am asking for too much?

All images from sxc.hu (the stock.xchng)

• Book Image
• Flag Image

The ‘Cute Girl on the Subway’ Syndrome

This being my first post, let me introduce myself. I’m not going to tell you anything that isn’t already listed on my about page, so this is only a formality. My name is Anton Tsvilikhovskiy. I am 17, and a Senior in High School. I am a musician, a programmer, an atheist, a web designer, and a writer. I’m mostly going to be writing about my thoughts, opinions, and musings. Hopefully I can catch your interest, and if I do, leave a comment or email me. Anyway, onto the post.

Most of you may be looking at the title, and may have a good guess at what it means, others may be confused. Let me clear things up, by telling you about something that happened to me a year ago that has stuck to me quite strongly for some reason. Around a year ago I was in New York City, to be honest with you I don’t even remember why I was in the city at the time. In any case, I was going out for a walk at night, and after a while, I thought I would take the Staten Island Ferry for a ride. I sat down in the open-air area, where I could see the bay at night. The temperature was comfortable and I could not have been more relaxed. There was a seat facing me; not uncomfortably close, but not completely closed off either. A gorgeous girl, who looked to be about my age walked in and sat in it.

She would shyly avoid my glances as I would avoid hers. All I could think about was striking up a conversation with her, but alas I am not the forward type, so I was equally shy and evasive. Eventually the ferry stopped and neither of us saw each other again.

I’ll bet something similar to this has happened to all of you. Maybe somebody on line in a shop, or the cashier, or someone you see on your daily route, or once in a lifetime. Although it happened to me on a ferry, I call it the “Cute Girl on the Subway” syndrome because it has happened to me more often on the subway, and I think more people can relate to that too.

What I’m really trying to convey, is the incredibly fragile idea of fate, and the strong impact of relationships on it. In my terms, a relationship is any interaction between two human beings that both parties are aware of. This is vague, but only because I want to demonstrate how even a vague relationship can change your life. For example, a glance at a stranger, and the next time you see them will queue a “Have I seen you somewhere before?” These kind of relationships are the bases of more complex relations. Let’s say I did talk to the cute girl on the ferry; What if we hit it off? What if we exchanged numbers (unlikely, I know, but run with me here.) She could become a best friend, maybe even a lover. What if it went sour? What if she hated me, or thought I was a creep? And if she was indifferent, and completely uninterested? Her reaction to my interaction creates a huge base for whatever is going to happen next, and has the power to bend fate at any angle, in any direction.

Think about how you met your significant other, your best friend, or your enemies. It’s not 100% guaranteed that you meet your love under the most perfect conditions and fall in love at first sight; It could have been when you were shopping for toothpaste. You probably didn’t meet your best friend and knew right away that you would get along with them. The fact of the matter is that these relationships, and their general alignments (positive or negative) are very unpredictable, and slightly unstable. If your significant other is unfaithful, then the nature of the relationship will obviously change, as well as a huge part of your life. Your time-line, your ‘Fate’, isn’t driven by divine intervention, it isn’t open like a book for fortune tellers to read. It is a complex network of people’s actions and how they affect you. It is only slightly in your control, and in the control of the people you interact with.

All images from sxc.hu (the stock.xchng)

• Eye Image
• Subway Image