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In light of the success of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series of books and Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries series, which have been adapted to film and television, respectively, I feel the need to make this important public service announcement. These are works of fiction. Their portrayal of vampires as good or at least morally conflicted is inaccurate. There is no such thing as a good vampire. Vampires do not have morals. If you encounter a vampire this Halloween, please remember that, no matter how charming or devastatingly good-looking it is, it is evil and should be destroyed. There are no exceptions. Thank you. That is all.
Filed under: Life, Random, Writing | Tags: dubrovnik, Google, maps, sarajevo, writing random
EDIT: Apparently Google Maps fixed the problem. Now I guess you’ll just have to trust me. You trust me, don’t you?
So I’m writing today, and for the scene I’m working on, I need to know roughly how long it might take to get from Dubrovnik, Croatia to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. No problem, I think, I’ll just go to trustworthy Google Maps to find out. It gave should have given me this:
See anything wrong with the map above? Note that according to Google Maps, one shouldn’t take the conveniently located highway between the two cities. Apparently that’s for sissies. No, the preferred route is to take the ferry to Bari, Italy, drive to Brindisi, Italy, take the ferry there to Paxi, Greece, take another ferry to Parga, Greece, drive through the Albanian cities of Durrës and Shkodër, into Montenegro and through its capital of Podgorica before finally entering Bosnia and Herzegovina and arriving in its lovely capital. For the record, that’s six countries, six languages, three alphabets, 885 miles, and 28 hours to travel between two cities that are roughly 150 miles apart.
I sure hope Google fixes their algorithm before they take over the world. Of course, that could be their evil plan. Get everyone lost and then swoop in to fill the vacuum. There’s a conspiracy we sould be trying to spread.
Filed under: Life, Random | Tags: advertisement, George Orwell, marketing, Mercedes Benz, propaganda
Here in Southern California, radio spots for cars take obnoxiousness to an art form. It doesn’t matter the make–BMW, Lexus, Mercedes Benz–there’s always a golden-throated announcer eager to tell you what a loser your are for not owning one.
There is one marketing campaign, however, I find particularly vile, and that is the campaign for the Mercedes Benz CLS, or, as they call it, the world’s first “four-door coupe.” Why is this so vile? Because there can be no such thing as a four-door coupe. A coupe, by definition, has two doors. If it has four doors, it’s a sedan. It can be a sport sedan, but it’s still a sedan. There is a special place in hell for marketers who screw with the language like this.
You may be wondering why I get so riled up over a stupid commercial for an overpriced metal transportation box. It’s because messing with the meanings of words has serious consequences. That’s how totalitarian regimes consolidate their power. The start redefining things. It’s not “genocide.” It’s “special handling” or “ethnic clensing.” The ad copy might as well read, “The Mercedes Benz CLS–it’s doubleplusgood!”
Filed under: Reading | Tags: Booking Through Thursday, books, memes, One Hundred Years of Solitude
What, in your opinion, is the best book that you haven’t liked?
I’d have to say One hundred years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. By some fluke, I had to read it three times in high school. I think that García Márquez is a brilliant writer. I loved his use of magical realism in the book. To this day, I can still vividly, and even fondly, recall many of the scenes in the book, but it’s a very long book, and it requires a certain amount of fortitude to finish it. For those who aren’t familiar, the book chronicles the rise and fall of the Buendía family and the fictional town of Macondo, Colombia. I don’t think that I’m spoiling anything by saying that things do not end well for most of the characters. By the end of the book, I found myself thinking, Why doesn’t everyone just hurry up and die? Why is it taking eighty more pages? So while I don’t deny the great signficance of the book, I won’t be reading it a fourth time.
