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• SomeGuy

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Birthday
• 1983-08-05
Gender
• Male
Location
• Vancouver, BC
Member Since
• 2003-08-02
Occupation
• Writer; Part-Time Hero
Real Name
• James

Personal

Achievements
• Visiting eight different myO friends in person thus far
Anime Fan Since
• Winter 2001
Favorite Anime
• Neon Genesis Evangelion, .hack//SIGN, Naruto, Bleach, Beck, Peacemaker Kurogane, Ranma 1/2 (the guilty pleasure)
Goals
• Visit the myO friends I've missed thus far; complete a cosplay from 300
Hobbies
• Writing, Gaming, Kung Fu, Movies, Acting somewhat strange in general
Talents
• Can recognise most quotes from almost any movie/show on first listen; Can recite the entire 12 days of Christmas by memory




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myOtaku.com: SomeGuy


Monday, July 10, 2006

   Pirates 2 is good. You should watch that some time.
Now, first off I was originally planning to just say a bit about how I've worked all weekend and stuff, and then plug my article about appreciating dubs again. I think I need to plug an even better article, though.

"I am Otaku. Hear me Roar" by Color Me Evil.

I can honestly say that satirical humour seems to be getting lost on a lot of younger people today. It's a shame, it really is. These are the kids who are going to go out and watch "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and only laugh at the funny French accents. They're gonna miss the debate on Government, faulty science, supposedly-pure knights getting seduced by convents, supposedly-brave knights chopping down a wedding party, and the anticlimactic "arrest" ending. It's a shame, it really is.

It reminds me of a yearbook write-up from a guy in the 1999 graduating class of my high school. Y'know, those things where the grads talk about how much fun high school was, all the initials to all their friends, being glad to be done, looking forward to the 10 year reunion . . . anyways, not all of 'em are so straight-forward. Allow me to reiterate Mr. Eric Mak's thoughts:

"By the time you have read this, a bomb which I have built will have been placed somewhere in NWSS and it will explode as soon as you finish reading this. If I win, NWSS will be wiped out off the face of the map. Even when you deny it, reader, you are the same type of person I am; a person who can no longer feel anything unless he commits diabolical crimes like this. This scheme is the result of having spent 5 years studying for tests and having no life. Good By my ......."

Needless to say, once the yearbooks came out that year, a LOT of people in my classes were going, "omigod! Go to page 146! This guy's psycho! He wants to blow up the school!"

. . . . . . now, this was 7 or 8 odd years ago. Even I knew that this guy was just playing around. Shall I go through the points? Yeah, let's do that . . .


"By the time you have read this, a bomb which I have built...will explode as soon as you finish reading this...."
Yes, because bombs can in fact be timed for some two-thousand odd students who will all finish reading one entry of page 146 of the yearbook at the same time . . .

"...If I win, NWSS will be wiped out off the face of the map..."
The . . . road map?

"...Even when you deny it, reader, you are the same type of person I am; a person who can no longer feel anything unless he commits diabolical crimes like this..."
Do I need to go into how a lot of people reading this were probably smoking pot every weekend anyway? And furthermore, who says diabolical anymore?!

"...This scheme is the result of having spent 5 years studying for tests and having no life...."
Who would write this in a yearbook if it was serious?! Who?! This is basically the, 'in case you didn't get the joke yet..." line.

"...Good By my ......."
Oh, it cut off. I get it, because the bomb blew up at exactly this moment, so we're all dead now . . . almost makes you wonder how this got by the yearbook censors . . . . . oh yeah! 'Cause they realised it was a joke!


I spent a lot of time explaining to my peers that this was all a wind-up. I don't care how disinterested the guy looks in his grad photo, his write-up screams "ridiculous!" all over. And yet, there I was, explaining to people in the hallway and in my Science 10 classroom that he's joking.


I for one think Evil's article is very well sharpened and tuned. She's getting a lot of flak from people not getting the joke, which is a shame. Now some, they've either commented back, or edited their comments once they realised it was in fact, a complete satire. Others, meanwhile, refuse to even admit that it's satire, and that it in fact negatively impresses the real truth behind some very pathetic people. That's just, well . . . . . whatever.

My guess, though, is that a lot of people who knee-jerked, voted down and left a humourless response have since read all these comments about how it was all a joke, and would rather just step away quietly lest they have to work out the problem of being left out of a joke - 'cause well, no one likes it when they realise they didn't get a joke. That's what I'm at least hoping for, anyway.


So yeah, those of you with a taste for irony, satire, and all the intelligent humour that goes with it, read Evil's work. And if you still don't get it, well . . . . . therein lies a whole other joke to laugh about.


Ohhhh yeah . . . one more thing . . . . . Maris', my most favourite Dutch girl in the whole world, turned 19 yesterday. Send her some well-wishes while I let her pound on my head for not saying something earlier.

That said . . . happy nineteenth, beautiful. I wish you a wonderful year even better than the last.
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