“Beer, it’s the best damn drink in the world.”

Jack Nicholson

Beer has been around as long as human civilization. When human beings gave up the nomadic life of hunting and gathering, and chose instead to settled down and farm, they started making beer with the grains they were growing. Although wine came shortly afterwards, beer is considered by most to be the oldest of alcoholic beverages. And wine, for a very long time, was considered the drink of choice for those who could afford it.

We’re living in a golden age for beer and wine. There’s never been a period in history where alcohol was made to the standards that it is today. Both wine and beer are made in the same fashion. You let a bunch of food sit around for a while until it turns into hooch. Beer was made from fermenting cereals, and wine was made from fermenting grapes. Yeast, the active bacteria that eats sugar and defecates alcohol, is found in the air, and will actively begin to ferment fruits and grains under the right conditions. Today, yeast is added to both wine and beer process, to speed up and control the procedure.

The point I’m trying to make here is this; the kind of alcohol people drank for thousands of years was rotting food. And human beings couldn’t get enough of the stuff. Our entire species owes it’s formation to booze. My guess is, rotting grapes tasted quite a bit better than rotting wheat mash. Wine was seen as the drink of the gods, while beer was given to slaves.

Even in the twentieth century, wine was the drink of the wealthy and the establishment. Beer was for the blue collared working man. Wine enthusiasts would prattle on about vintages, regions, terroirs, sniffing and sipping on wines from France and Italy. Classes could be taken, and certifications could be earned. Wine sommeliers earned their living by waxing poetic about their drink of choice, claiming that certain wines should be paired with certain foods. Beer was the drink the mechanics and the plumbers would crack open after a long days work. Beer usually came in one flavor, Beer flavor. That’s recently changed.

There’s always been craft beers, beers that were brewed by Trappist monks, beer that was creating with insane hop flavors, but these stayed out of the public eye for most of the twentieth century. We now have access to a wide range of beers, from black stouts to citrusy white beers. Beer pairings have started popping up, suggesting complex Belgian style beers with red meats and Pilsners with certain cheeses. Beer snobs have been growing like weeds.

This is great news for beer drinkers, because that means there are a whole slew of new and exciting new beers to drink. This is also great news for wine.

Wine producers, believe it or not, have been trying to shed the notion that you need to be knowledgeable about wine in order to enjoy it. This imaginary wine boundary has prevented wine makers from tapping into a larger market. The people who grow wine grapes and bottle the result don’t want to limit their customer base to a select few, who claim some sort of magic knowledge is required to appreciate their product. They want everyone drinking wine. Who cares if the Cabernet Sauvignon doesn’t pair with the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner? Put it on the table anyways. There’s too much bullshit surrounding wine that’s based on pretentious clowns trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

I should know. I’ve taken a sommelier class in wine.

Right after I did, I was the wine expert among many of my friends and family. I’d get phone calls, asking me if they should crack open the bottle they bought, or if they should lock it away in the cellar. I had to tell people they weren’t wasting their wine if they paired it with something other than goat’s cheese and children’s tears. When presented with a wine as a gift, I had to reassure my friends that yes, the wine they got me was a good wine.

So I’ve put together a little list for people, so we can bury a few myths about wine.

1. Most wine was made to be drunk right away. There’s a couple of wines that benefit from sitting around for a while, like an Italian Barolo. Unless you’re asking for something specific or you’re a wine collector, that bottle of wine is probably safe to drink right now.
2. Pairing is nice, but unless you’re also a food snob as well, you’re probably not going to notice. Same goes with beer.
3. Go to a nice liquor store and talk to someone who works there. I can’t stress this enough. That’s what I do when I want something special. I talk to a person who’s made it their living to sell wine.

Will beer become snobbier than wine though? Never, in my opinion. The snootiness of wine is too implanted in our culture to easily shake, but I’m hoping that wine continues to become more accessible to people in the future. Booze isn’t nearly as classy as the advertisements would have you believe. Just remember, you’re drinking the urine of microbes in order to get your slant on.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I love both wine and beer equally. No preference here.

p.s.s. If someone offers you a beer and you accept, you forgo the right to reject the beer being offered. If they hand you a Lucky, then you drink the Goddamn Lucky. Learn some damned manners and be a gracious guest.

 

 

There was a television show back in the nineties called ‘SeaQuest DSV’ (the DSV meant deep sea vehicle). In the near future of 2018, humanity has all but exhausted natural resources on the surface, and now look to the vast oceans to provide a new source of food and energy. Underwater colonies are setup, and the crew of the submarine ‘SeaQuest’ travel the deep blue solving issues and discovering mysteries. The show had a Star Trek feel to it, and included an incredibly smart dolphin that could communicate with the crew. It wasn’t a bad show, but only lasted two and a half seasons.

With NASA getting people fired up to head to Mars, and with Astrophysicists like Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Dr. Stephen Hawking amping up the hype, some people are left wondering why we aren’t headed to into the depths of the oceans? More than 95% of the oceans still remain undiscovered. If there is that much of our own Earth left to discover, why aren’t we hearing more about it?

Right off the bat, it’s worth mentioning the two frontiers aren’t at odds with each other. Money that doesn’t get invested into space exploration isn’t automatically going into deep sea research, that’s not how any government functions. Money is being invested into exploring the oceans, and there are agencies like the NOAA (Nation Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) which currently fund the vessel Okeanos, which is the only ship being funded by the United Stated government to map and explore the oceans for the advancement of knowledge.

There’s also a number of oil companies that are consistently mapping out and searching for resources underneath the ocean floors. There is the very good argument, especially after the BP Deepwater Horizon spill that happened in the Gulf of Mexico, that drilling in the ocean is damaging to the ocean’s environment. What you need to remember is that science rarely gets any funding unless there is some sort of profit to be made, or issue to be solved. Space exploration is becoming big again, because there are people who want to monetize the stars. Cancer research funding is incredibly political, and labs across the planet are constantly trying to get more funding, whether it’s from the government, large corporations, or small donations made by people like you and me.

The real boundary for deep sea exploration is the actual physics of going that far under the surface of the ocean. Going to the bottom of the ocean is far more dangerous than going into space. Space exists as a vacuum. Once you’re out there, the strain on the orbiting vessel is constant. With water, every inch you descend, the pressure to the exterior to the submersible increases. The deepest recorded manned vessel was the Trieste at 10,911 metres below sea level, and was accomplished in 1960 by Jacques Piccard and Lieutenant Don Walsh. They explored the Challenger Deep, a part of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the world’s oceans.

The other issue for research and reconnaissance is the lack of light. Light from the surface stops penetrating at a depth of roughly a 1000 metres. Most of the ocean is covered in this depth. To truly observe and collect visual information, high powered lights are required. This poses two problems. The lights aren’t able to look very far underneath the ocean. Even with lighting, sight is reduced to a few metres. As well, the life that exists at these depths isn’t used to light. This could change the behavior of the life at these depths, and render the studies of marine life to be skewed.

We’ve done a pretty good job of mapping the ocean, so we have an understanding of the topography done below. Will we ever colonize the ocean floor, as seen in dozens of sci-fi movies and television shows? Probably not. It’s way too expensive to build and live at the bottom of the ocean. Not to mention how dangerous it is. There’s no point. For anyone hoping to move to Andrew Ryan’s undersea paradise, free from the shackles of government and religion, then I hate to burst your bubble. If the supply of oil starts to dwindle, you can be sure a lot of companies will be sending robotic scouts down there.

Truthfully, I’m hoping people stay away from the depths of the ocean. The last thing our planet needs is a bunch of Kaiju running around.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Hey, when you’re writing a post everyday, you can phone it in every now and again.

 

If you follow me on a somewhat regular basis, you’ll know I recently downloaded a browser extension called ‘Fluff Busting Purity’, or FB Purity. The goal of FB Purity is to allow people to fully customize their Facebook experience. You have the opportunity to remove game requests, shared stories, linked articles, and more. You can change the layout, the font, you can modify a lot about the whole look. It really does improve Facebook, especially if you use it on a regular basis to keep up with friends and family. The question is, why is this extension necessary? Why have the changes Facebook made over the last few years degraded the user experience?

Facebook is free to use. There’s no fee to use it, and the likelihood of the site charging money is non-existent. At the same time, Facebook is worth money. Quite a bit of money in fact. It’s worth over three hundred billion dollars. The money that Facebook generates isn’t from the users of the site, but rather the advertisers selling ads. Much like Google, Facebook doesn’t sell products, it sells ad space. Like the newspapers of yesterday, Facebook’s main goal, as a business, is to sell ads. Unlike newspapers though, content isn’t provided by a team of journalists or reporters. It’s provided by the users.

This is one of the problems with Facebook. The reason many creative people, musicians, artists, comedians, and movie makers, have beef with Facebook is the method in which allow you to share content. Facebook boasts over eight million video views a day. In the first quarter of 2015, 725 of the top 1000 videos on Facebook were stolen from Youtube. If the video is viewed on Youtube, the creator of the video gets reimbursed with cash. If the video gets played through the Facebook player, the creator gets squat. Now, this is obviously an issue, because the people who make the content will have less of an incentive to create more content. And it’s incredibly easy to steal content or ideas, just like I did. all the information I pulled was from this video.

Luckily enough, even if you watch this video from my site, the person who made it still gets a view.

With FB Purity, I get the option to turn off all of Facebook’s videos, but it still allows me to view Youtube videos that have been posted to Facebook. I get to still watch videos from Facebook, as long as they give the original Youtube link. There’s also the option to turn off the autoplay that is normally turned on when you go to Facebook. Most of the changes made to Facebook are to link you directly with advertisers.

I’ve read numerous posts in regards to the changes Facebook keeps making to their site, and most of them are negative. Facebook makes it difficult to stop the inflow of garbage to your feed. You have to reject every specific application or game request, it seems. FB Purity solves a lot of the issues that have appeared in recent years, allowing you to flat out purge a number of items that are clogging up your Facebook page.

Facebook claimed that FB Purity violates it’s terms of service, and they’re probably right. At the same time, FB Purity still has a Facebook fan page, here https://www.facebook.com/fluffbustingpurity. It won’t harm your computer in any way, and Facebook isn’t going to come after you if you install it. If you’re one of the many that have become dissatisfied with Facebook recently, then you will at least want to check it out.

Even though Facebook continues to grow, and currently has over a billion subscribers, most the people signing up for Facebook happen to be over thirty. Facebook has a hard time attracting young people to it’s service, as their parents tend to have the service as well. Teenagers are much more interested in sites like Instagram for their social media needs. Facebook is seen as a place where old people hang out.

Will Facebook be around forever? I’m not sure, but I’d place my money on it going the way of the Dodo. Social media has been around for only a short amount of time, and before Facebook there was Myspace. Google has cemented itself in the age of information by creating an extremely powerful search algorithm, one that has changed the way our information is connected. Facebook… allows us to connect to each other in a manner that’s more efficient than phone calls and emails? Facebook needs to reinvent itself to become cool again, because the last demographic in the tech world you want to attract are the old fogies. What Facebook desperately needs is a Facelift.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I’m not saying that Youtube is devoid of content theft, they have their own unique problems.

You know, I typically find Canadian Politics boring. A yawn. A snore. That’s a good thing though. Entertaining usually means stupid. Right now the leader for the republican party is a reality show host whose never once held a position in politics. Incredibly entertaining. Right now Canadian politics are following suit.

My expression when I found out what the deal was

Let me explain what happened. There was a vote on a bill. The bill was C-14, which is amending laws in order to allow physicians to perform assisted suicides. There were a bunch of NDP members of parliament, who were milling about, in order to delay the voting procedure. They were obstructing other members of parliament from voting. One of the MP’s trying to vote was Conservative Gord Brown. Prime MIninster Trudeau, who was getting frustrated, ran over to Gord, knocked into a bunch of people forcefully, and pulled him over to his desk. The NDP MP,  Ruth Ellen Brosseau, was elbowed in the chest by Trudeau, left the chamber immediately afterwards, and as a result didn’t vote.

Everything about this is embarrassing. The school yard tactics that the NDPs were using to block other members from placing a vote? Quite the show, but shameful. The Prime Minister of Canada barging through a group of people, yelling ‘Get the fuck out of the way’? Hilarious, but wildly inappropriate. Ruth Brosseau, pulling the flop like a soccer player? Makes for good television, I guess. Politicians are like the people who were popular in back in high school, if the cool kids in high school didn’t grow up to be adults that I actually respect and admire.

These are the people who lead the nation. They form the laws that govern us and protect the people who don’t have a voice. They’re in charge of the billions of tax dollars we provide, to spend it on making our country a better place to live for everyone. And they’ve turned the house of common into an elementary school playground. The thing is, these sort of tactics are used all the time. The ‘milling about, setting up a roadblock so other MPs can’t vote’ tactic? Apparently this is a legitimate play. Acting inappropriately outraged over something? Pretty common in the House of Commons. Spewing vitriol in every direction on social media? This is pretty new, but every politician has soaked it up.

Ask yourself this question. Would any of these behaviors, the blocking, the shoving, the elbow, and then the aftermath of insults, apologies, and rude behavior, would any of this be acceptable in your workplace? More than likely not, and repeated incidents would probably have you fired. Why are these things accepted in politics? Why does the House of Commons look like a crowd of soccer hooligans who are about to riot with clubs made of bills and legislature?

The fact the system we have in place for making decisions is over a century old is embarrassing. We live in a digital world now. There’s absolutely no reason we need a House of Commons and there’s no reason we need to stick a bunch of politicians with opposing views in the same building. Why not have a virtual House of Commons, a giant online messaging system so that politicians wouldn’t have to leave their ridings? It would be easier to regulate, and would cost the taxpayers a lot less. Sure, the discussions would be a pile of insults and barbed comments, but that’s the rest of the internet anyways. Throw them a party once a year so they can shake hands and talk face-to-face. Problem solved.

With the system we have in place, I’m surprised elbows aren’t happening on a regular basis. I’d go feral if someone’s strategy was to get in my way to prevent me from doing my job. I’d be raging, throwing Judo chops left and right. The way things are, we might as well throw them on a slab of ice, give of some gear and sticks, and then have them play over the bills they’re voting on. I’m not sure how effective it would be, but politics isn’t very effective anyways, and this would be way more entertaining.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Mr. Charlton really dislikes politicians as a whole. I cringe a little every time I vote.

p.s.s. There’s two soccer references in there, for ya.

p.s.s.s I can’t stand that journalists have been calling it ‘ElbowGate’. It seems throwing ‘Gate’ on the end of something signifies a scandal. Doesn’t make any sense.

In the first installment, we talked about how strong, smart and wealthy Batman is. In the second installment, we discussed how Batman is making Gotham city a worse place to live. To wrap it up, let’s talk about how crazy Batman is, and what drives him to continue being a masked vigilante.

There’s one famous Batman comic, titled ‘Arkham Asylum – A Serious House on Serious Earth’, where Batman is lured to Arkham Asylum. His arch nemesis, the Joker, has brought him there, to convince Batman that he belongs in the Asylum with rest of the psychotic criminal scourge. He’s right. Batman absolutely should be locked up in Arkham.

The death of Bruce Wayne’s parents scarred him for life, to such an extent Bruce never grew up. Even with all of his strength and his genius intellect, he’s decided to confront the problem the same way a child would. Watching his parents die in front of him terrified young Bruce Wayne so badly that he’s been emotionally stunted, locked in a promise he made to himself to “get stronger and make the bad guys go away.”

Genius doesn’t grant perspective, only time and self-reflection can do that. Between the dozen of university degrees he’s earned, the handful of languages he speaks, and the hundred or so martial arts he’s mastered, how much time has Batman had to reflect on his choices? His character is known to be stubborn, a loner, and difficult to work with.

Remember,  Batman grew up insanely wealthy, before his parents died. He lived a sheltered, privileged life. What if Thomas never had the opportunity to explain to young Bruce that the bad guys aren’t always on the streets? That there are also those who take advantage of other while wearing a suit? The truth is, all three Wayne’s died that night. Bruce died and became Batman.

Even though he’s an adult, he’s still emotionally a child. This can be seen from the fact that his partners, or his ‘wards’, are young children. His inability to connect with adults is apparent. His only known true friends, those who know his true identity, are limited to a handful. Even then, he chooses to keep his distance.

Then there’s the case of true identity. Other superheroes use a disguise and an alter ego to protect those they love from harm. Who exactly is Batman protecting? Himself. Remember, Bruce Wayne acts like the one percent the poor tend to despise. He does so to give a wide berth between himself and Bruce Wayne. What would happen if people found out that the crime fighting hero known as Batman was the rich asshole Bruce Wayne?

People would hate him. How many of the working poor have been sent to Arkham do to excessive force? How many families broken up? Why wasn’t Bruce Wayne creating more wealth in Gotham? That’s what he was doing with his fortune, playing dress-up as a superhero? Bringing more chaos and violence to Gotham city? There would be riots in the streets, Bruce Wayne would have the book thrown at him. His entire empire would crumble around him.

That’s what the citizens would do. His villains? They would have a field day! The Joker would put up posters all over Gotham of the crime scene. He’d have loudspeakers playing the last known recorded voice of his parents. And that’s just the Joker. Every single enemy Batman has ever made would be using this information against him. Batman has confronted every villain in Gotham, but has he ever faced the demon within himself? I’m pretty sure Batman would start beating his enemies to death while sobbing and screaming.

To top this all off, let’s look as his counter part, Iron Man. Batman was created by DC comics, and Iron Man by Marvel. They’re both rich, both industrialists, both crime fighting heroes. Batman lives in crime riddled Gotham, Iron Man lives in New York city, one of the greatest cities on the planet. Batman keeps the population poor in Gotham so that he can deliver justice, Iron Man is too busy fighting alien invasions and false gods to worry about street crime, he leaves that to the proper authorities. Batman keeps his identity a secret, while every knows that Iron Man is the famous mechanical genius Tony Stark. You know what demon Tony Stark had to face? Alcoholism. And he beat that by quitting the hooch.

Bruce Wayne should have seen a damn psychologist after the death of his parents. I’m guessing the only psychologists in Gotham are from Arkham Asylum, and I’m certain the sessions had the therapist screaming at Bruce that this was his fault while collecting his tears for some bizarre experiment. Batman is a lame super hero. I rest my case.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I’m outta things to say about Batman. If you still think he’s the best superhero around, then I can’t help you.

p.s.s. The Batman video games still kick ass, though.

 

 

If you have not read the previous post, go read that now. It’s important. I wanted to solidify two points in the last argument; Batman is incredibly smart, and he’s incredibly rich. Why is that such an issue? Wouldn’t a wealthy genius with an armament of gadgets be the perfect vehicle for fighting crime?

What are the causes of crime?

We first need to examine why people turn to a life of crime in the first place. Statistically, criminals come from a lower socioeconomic background. The average person who takes up crime isn’t doing it because they want to be criminals, but rather they have to take these dangerous illegal positions. Think about it, how many people do you think actually want to work with the Joker? A psychopath who might kill you for kicks, that’s sounds like a great employment opportunity. Most thugs are taking these jobs out of desperation. And the ones who are actually crazy, unfortunately there’s only one psychiatric ward in Gotham, and we’ll get to that later.

Gotham city, we’re told again and again, is so crime ridden that Batman rarely sleeps. The police are so under funded and corrupt they’re seen as largely ineffective. Gotham is a symbol of what happens when the gap in wealth widens to staggering proportions. Thomas Wayne, Batman’s father, was turning the tide against this gap by investing in local jobs, public transit, health care and other progressive measures. Why didn’t Bruce Wayne take up this mantle of forward thinking? That list I produced in the last with the degrees Batman has? Here’s a better list of things Bruce Wayne should have studied.

• Urban Planning
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Anthropology
• Business Management
• Leadership
• Civil Engineering
• Law
• and a slew of other things

With his genius and his money, turning the city around should have been easy. He could have revolutionized Gotham city’s industry, turning it into the next Metropolis. Batman chose to fight crime on the ground as a super vigilante.  You might argue ‘But Bruce Wayne gives tons of money to charities’. You mean charities in Gotham? In a city where the police, the elected officials, the bankers, the doctors, and pretty much everyone is corrupt? I sure the people distributing money to the poor are squeaky clean.

The thing about Bruce Wayne is that he has to act like a rich jackass to keep his identity a secret. Bruce is portrayed as an alcoholic playboy, someone with more brains than money. He’s the stereotypical rich asshole everyone loves to hate. This is important, and I want you to remember this part. Bruce Wayne acts like the one percent poor people tend to despise.

Is Batman creating his own enemies?

The low level thugs he beats up, for justice? This is what that looks like. Here’s a clip from the video game, and it’s considered the definitive take on Batman’s fighting prowess.

Batman is braining thugs left and right. Remember, Batman is a guy who can easily bench a thousand pounds. How many concussions does Batman hand out on a regular basis? Batman has never killed a man, it’s against his code of ethics, but apparently giving a guy a brain injury isn’t out of the question. Let’s say a guy, out of work in Gotham, wife and kids at home, decides to sign up to a gang to make something, anything for his family. Some dude dressed in pajamas swoops down, cracks his skull, and now he’s developmentally disabled. Where are they sending him? Arkham Asylum.

Arkham Asylum – Making the sick, sicker

Arkham Asylum is a big part of the Batman lore. It’s the only institution in Gotham city that treats people with mental health issues, and it’s a notorious hell-hole. Not only does it house Batman’s roster of violent villains, it’s a decrepit nightmare of a building. Run down, underfunded, it’s infamous for having doctors more twisted than most of the patients. It’s also haunted. If you were a regular guy who ran into Batman going in, you’re coming out a certified crazy thug when you get out. Arkham is not a rehabilitation facility, let’s make that clear. Arkham Asylum is a Batman punching bag factory, where practice dummies are manufactured for Batman to assault later on.

And where did all these crazy, super powered villains come from? There weren’t any Killer Crocs, Poison Ivys, Banes or Jokers before Batman. Why are there so many now? Becoming Batman has had a butterfly effect on Gotham. He’s the greatest fighter on the planet, and has attracted villains from all over the world with a chip on their shoulder, looking to pick a fight. The reason Bane came to Gotham? To challenge Batman. And how did he get Batman’s attention? By letting out every single insane inmate from Arkham Asylum out of their cage and on to the streets. There was chaos, property damage and widespread murders. All so someone could take on the Batman. The Joker is the most iconic of the Batman villains. The only reason he causes destruction and mayhem is to force Batman to break his one rule and have Batman kill him. That’s it. There are Batman stories where the Bats dies, and the Joker winds up either leaving Gotham or becoming normal again, and actually feeling bad for the damage he’s done. It’s been stated numerous times in the comic books and the movies; the only reason the Joker exists is because Batman does. The scariest, most ruthless villain on planet Earth exists solely because there is a Batman.

Batman sucks

Batman is terrible because he’s self-perpetuating the problems he’s claiming to fix. He’s attracting monsters to Gotham who are looking for a fight. Due to the brutal methods of his form of justice, he’s created a legion of mentally ill, unstable men, who’s only chance of redemption and rehabilitation is an underfunded psychiatric ward. And where is Bruce Wayne, Batman’s alter ego, in all of this? Pretending to be drunk and carefree. Bruce could have gone into politics, or studied the social issues surrounding crime, or gone after white collar criminals as a genius lawyer, and is so smart could have easily done all three. Instead, he learns Krav Maga and starts kicking the shit out of poor people.

Do you think Thomas Wayne would be proud of his son? Thomas was a doctor and a man who aspired to help those who couldn’t help themselves. Would Martha Wayne be proud of her boy? She was dedicated to the charities she ran that made Gotham a better place. The Waynes are rolling in their graves. Their son is inadvertently keeping the city poor and destitute so he can fight crime with his fists, so he doesn’t have to grow up and realize that sometimes bad things happen to good people. Being Batman is a form of twisted therapy, to alleviate the guilt Bruce feels because he wasn’t able to save his parents as a child.

Batman is an asshole.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. In the third installment, I’ll be talking about what is mentally wrong with Batman.

p.s.s. And everyone knows it’s the villains that make Batman interesting.

 

I write up a post, and this is the first comment I see. Great. Now some pencil pushing clown is telling me Batman is good. I mentioned briefly in my last post that Batman is a lame character. And he is. He’s the very definition of lame: broken, fractured, useless. Gotham city would be better off without the Batman.

Batman is considered one of the greatest superheroes of all time. Starting out as a comic book character in 1939, he’s since become a franchise, with movies, video games, cartoons, toys, clothing lines, and novels. Often hailed as ‘The World’s Greatest Detective’, he’s a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Bruce Lee, a gifted criminal investigator at the top of peak physical condition. If I were to guess, I would say that Batman is the world’s favorite superhero. Unlike most heroes of today mythos, Batman possesses no special powers, except for an iron will, a genius level IQ, and billions of dollars at his disposal.

This is going to be a three part post. In the first post, I will demonstrate exactly who Batman is, what his capabilities are, and why he fights. In the second post, I will explain why the selection of choices he made as a young adult have warped his perception, and why he’s perpetuating and escalating the violence in Gotham city. Finally, I’ll evaluate Batman and try to accurately diagnose exactly what wrong with him.

Bruce Wayne, the alter ego of Batman, is the son of the rich industrialist Thomas Wayne. When he was a young boy, Bruce saw his father and mother, Martha Wayne, gunned down in front of him. Determined to make sure the tragedy would never happen to anyone else, he dedicated his life to fighting as the masked vigilante known as Batman.

Let’s talk how good Batman is at being Batman. He’s considered by Superman to be ‘The most dangerous person on Earth’ and by dangerous, he meant badass. First and foremost, he possess indomitable will. He’s an expert as interrogations, whether it’s methods used by law enforcement or straight up torture. He’s physically conditioned to a level bordering on superhuman, his benches over a thousand pounds, his reflexes are off the charts, he’s probably the finest human specimen on the planet. He’s a master at gymnastics and acrobatics.

He has mastered over a hundred styles of martial arts, including Muay Thai, Karate, Ninjitsu, Krav Maga, Judo, Boxing, Shaolin Kung-Fu, just to name a few. He’s not just familiar with them, he has mastered them. This bears repeating. He’s proficient with weapons as well, including swords and throwing stars. In the comic book world, he’s one  of the best hand-to-hand combatants in the universe.

Did I mention he’s smart? Insanely smart. With an IQ of 192, he’s a genius. Here’s a list of the subjects he has university degrees in:

• Criminal Science
• Forensics
• Computer Science
• Chemistry
• Engineering
• Biology
• Physics
• Technology

He’s also studied mathematics, mythology, geography, history, diverse environmental training, security systems and even magic. He’s can also speak a dozen languages. To top that all off, he’s a brilliant strategist, is an escape artist, a crack pilot, better at driver vehicles than professional race car drivers, a knowledgeable tracker and a master of disguise.

Batman accomplished all of this and more before he was thirty, and was already fighting crime during much of this. Batman is a bona fide badass.

You think Batman is cool? You should see the lineup of villains he’s regularly putting away at Arkham Asylum. There’s the Killer Croc, a ten foot alligator-man who’s more brawn than brain. Poison Ivy, a femme fatale who can control plant life. The Riddler, a criminal mastermind who loves puzzles. The Penguin, an old school mob boss with a love of umbrellas. Two-Face, who was a district attorney in Gotham before an accident scared him and awoke a split personality disorder. Bane, a juiced up warrior, known as the man who ‘Broke the Bat’. And lastly, his most famous foe, the Joker. A psychotic clown who is known to have murdered thousands of people, he’s the Yin to Batman’s Yang. Where Batman represents order, the Joker represents chaos.

Batman wages war on these villains and the general scourge of crime plaguing Gotham city. He’s relentless, as he made a promise to his parents, all those years ago as a child, to right wrongs and fight injustice as he saw fit. Batman will hang up the cowl when he believes Gotham is safe.

Batman is a cool character, don’t get me wrong. As a superhero though, he fails on many levels. The next post is going to talk about how he’s made Gotham a worse place to live, ten-fold. This post set up all the pins, the next one is going to knock ’em down.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. There’s just two things I want you to take away from this. Batman is insanely smart, and Batman is insanely rich. We’ll discuss why that’s a problem tomorrow.

 

If you’re one of the people I know on Facebook, or you follow me on Twitter, or you know me and I’ve pointed you in the direction of this web page, or somehow stumbled onto this site by some sort of weird coincidence, then welcome. This is my webzone, and I’m glad you are reading my garbage. The purpose of this small rented space on the internet is to improve my writing.

I ran another blog for a while, http://illustriousmrcharlton.blogspot.ca/, for a number of years. Posts were sporadic. In the three and a half years writing at blogspot, I totalled twenty eight posts. I have been writing on this website for two weeks now, and I have fourteen posts. By the end of the month, I will be matching the number of posts I did in thirty months. I will then proceed to pat myself on the back.

Writing is easy. You don’t believe me? Painting is also easy, and I’ll prove it.

Unmitigated Genius.

Painting well, on the other hand, takes practice. And the same goes with writing. I’ve been working at becoming a better writer, because I love to write. It’s something that I’ve always been doing in the background.

The quality of these posts might not always be up to snuff. I’m going to post at weird times. I’m trying to figure out how to link this blog to the big social media outlets, so I don’t have to copy and paste a link every time I set something up. I need a logo, a better site layout, and maybe some business cards, so I can give them to people. Once they have my business card, they’ll have no choice but to put them with the other business cards sitting in the miscellaneous drawer of their kitchen. Or they can use my card to pick their teeth with, if the restaurant they ate at ran out of tooth picks.

The goal is to put up a decent post, everyday, for 365 days. Decent doesn’t mean Pulitzer prize winner. It means that I’ll have put something up that has words on it, that you can read with your face eyes. Hopefully, with time and practice, I’ll get better at putting words onto the internet.

It’s not just practice I’m looking for, I’m looking for a distinct voice. The internet is this blaring cacophony of millions of ideas, opinions, discussions, and trash talk. I don’t want the voice of the Illustrious Mr. Charlton to be someone else’s, with a twist of my own. I want it to be one hundred percent, unequivocally  Mr. Charlton. That’s going to take time too.

I’m returning to my roots though. When I started writing on the old blog, it soon turned into my voice countering a bunch of bullshit people were falling for. If there is one gift I have, it’s that there’s the heart of a brutal, cold, robot that lies in my warm fleshy body, a heart whose heart strings are electrified steel razor wire.

So when there’s an article claiming that Cancer has been cured, you can be sure I’ll knock it down when I find out they’ve only killed the Cancer cells it by setting fire to the petri dish. When you post a link to that promises to list the 2o greatest Batman villains of all time, I’ll be sure to write a post about how Batman is a lame super hero. And when you post a TED talk which claims it will change the world, I’ll swoop in to remind people the TED talks are a bit cultish, and years of research and study are impossible to cram into a twenty minute Youtube video.

The internet makes it easier to spread knowledge, wisdom, ideas, and information. It also makes it easier to spread bullshit, snake oil, misinformation, and stupidity. There is an enormous amount of stupidity out there. It’s a vast field of stupidity, just waiting to be harvested. There are rich veins of raw stupid to be mined and processed. Years ago, I worried about running out of material to write about. I can assure you, there’s so many hucksters, confidence men, and charlatans out there, that there’s no way I’ll ever run out of things to shake my head at.

You may not always agree with what I have to say. Good. Feel free to call out my stupidity. A blog without comments is as boring as saltines. And moving forward, I’m working on the comedy angle. With Trump as the republican nominee, the western half of
Canada burning to the ground, and robots coming to take our jobs, we better start laughing. ‘Cause if we’re not laughing, we’ll be crying.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Just because science journalism is awful, doesn’t mean we should stop kicking Cancer’s ass. But it seems every other week some one who failed high school biology is claiming the cure for Cancer happened yesterday.

“Mr. Charlton, there’s a problem in some of Canada’s major cities. There isn’t  affordable housing in Vancouver. The average price of a home is over a million dollars. Something needs to be done about these outrageous house prices.”

I read you loud and clear, internet. Well, it’s still expensive as heck, but you could always look into some of the surrounding areas, like Surrey or even Abbotsford. It’d be a long commute but…

“Nope. I want to live in Vancouver.”

Okay. Again, I’m laying out what you’re putting down. Now, it’s still pricey, but you could always start with a small apartment. You’d be living right downtown and…

“I want a house. A detached house.”

…. in Vancouver?

“Yeah. Like my parent bought when I was a kid.”

You’re from Vancouver, then?

“Nah, my parents raised me in (name of small logging/farming community in the middle of nowhere)”

And you want to buy a detached home. In the one of the most desirable cities on Earth. At a low price. You do realize that you buying a house in Vancouver is akin to your parents trying to buy a house in London or New York twenty five years ago, right? Your parents moved to the middle of nowhere.

“Hey! (small logging/farming community in the middle of nowhere) is a great place!”

I’m sure it is but…

“They filmed a commercial there once.”

Alright, all that aside, my friend here is right. The prices of homes in Vancouver are astronomical. There a lot of talk of taxing foreign investors to try and cool down the market. And that isn’t going to work. It’ll put more money into the government’s pockets, but it won’t bring prices down.

Most of the foreign investors are from China. China has a lot of people. One sixth of the world’s population. Their two largest cities, Shanghai and Beijing, have so many people that they rival our nation’s population. Two megalopolises have twice the number of citizen than our entire country. China has been doing well in the last couple of decades. The number of middle class in China has exploded, as well as the number of millionaires. When these Chinese foreign investors counter a bid on a house, they don’t go up by a few hundred dollars. They counter with offers of fifty thousand more. Exactly what kind of tax are your proposing that will scare this money away?

Even if levies and taxes were a solution, the branches of all three governments are terrified to stop foreign investments into real estate. That’s the only thing keeping our economy afloat at the moment. We spent years using oil, gas and real estate to prop up our economy. Oil and gas took a massive hit, and manufacturing hasn’t rebounded as quickly as people would like. If we didn’t have foreign investors buying up property the way they have been, construction would grind to a halt and it would jeopardize an already fragile economy.

Vancouver is an amazing place, I know. It’s the center of Canada’s film industry, the location of a number of startups and tech firms. It’s got a massive harbour. It’s beautiful and it rarely snows. Vancouver is a great city if you’re willing to be a starving artist or if you already have a ton of money. It’s not the place to settle down with a starter home and begin to raise a family. If your dream is to own a small house and have children, you should consider moving. The hard truth is you may think you have a great job there, but if where you’re employed can’t pay you a wage where you can afford to buy a place relatively close by, then it’s not that good of a job. And having a lousy job is fine if you’re working towards another goal, like becoming an actor or going to school or starting a business on the side. If your goal is to raise a family, then you have to consider moving to a place that’s more in your price range. A lot of people seem to want to cling on the notion they have to stay in the greater Vancouver area.

The last generation didn’t move to the middle of nowhere because of the scenery, or the selection of nice restaurants. They moved there because there were jobs and there was affordable housing. They lived and worked there for years so they could retire one day in their dream location, whether that was in Victoria, Vancouver, or heck, even Lethbridge.

You might say that if everyone left Vancouver to the foreign investors, it would become a ghost town. And that might be true. The thing that makes a city great is it’s people. But you can’t expect to live in one of the greatest cities on Earth and not expect to pay top dollar for it.

Vancouver is great. I’ll be the first to say it. But Calgary’s is the sunniest city in Canada, Edmonton is beautiful in the summer, Regina has some amazing golf courses, Winnipeg is home to one of the best blues festivals in the world. I’ve heard great things about Ottawa, Montreal is amazing, and the average price of a house in Fredericton is roughly $150,000. That’s not to mention the smaller cities, towns, and municipalities.

I’m not suggesting you move, if you really love it there. But if you want to make the choice between owning a house or living in an apartment in a place like New York, it comes down to a lifestyle choice. Do you want to live in the city, or move out to the country? For a while there, people thought they could have both. My parents couldn’t have both, and I probably can’t either. That’s okay by me. I’ll take the city any day.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Just remember, home is a time, not a place.

p.s.s. Calgary has been unfortunately having a massive amount of downtown space for rent now, with oil and gas taking a nose dive. Wouldn’t be a bad location for tech startups, though. And it’s only an hour drive from the mountains. Just planting seeds, people.

 

Pokémon. You’ve probably heard of it. Maybe you have small children who are invested in this Pokémon fad. Originally created in Japan by Nintendo, the word translates directly into ‘Pocket Monsters’. It was the brainchild of Satoshi Tajiri in 1995, and has become a worldwide phenomenon. The original two games, labeled Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue, respectively, have spawned dozens of sequels, television shows, movies, toys, clothing, and everything that you could possibly attach a brand to. There’s a new ‘game’ coming out soon, and let me tell you, I’m angry.

To label this a ‘game’ is beyond irresponsible. It’s a virtual dog fighting pit, baby’s first cock fighting ring, a perverted analogy of the slave trades of past, and gives way to thoughts of Ubermensch . The ‘gameplay’ is straightforward. You play the game as a Pokémon ‘Trainer’. You are given a Pokémon pet at the beginning, labeled a ‘starter’ by hardcore fans. With this new pet, you take it out in the wild and force it to fight with other Pokémon. Battling with either Pokémon you find in the wilderness or the Pokémon of other aggressive ‘trainers’, your Pokémon becomes stronger and more powerful. Is it because they no longer feel pain due to their repeated injuries? Have they succumbed to their position as megabyte Mandingos, having lost their emotions and regard for fellow Pokémon? The Pokémon may gain levels, but in exchange they lose their soul.

Not only are you FORCED to pit Pokémon against Pokémon in a sick cage style fight, to further succeed you’re forced to breed the Pokémon against their will. Place a couple of compatible Pokémon in a daycare, and they’ll have no choice but to lay an egg. The idea of forced breeding is bad enough, but in order to create the ‘perfect’ set of Pokémon, you choose the Pokémon based on their genetic traits. Pokémon families, TORN apart in order to fill the twisted desires of the game creators to build a better set of adorable fighting creatures.

Do you know who ELSE was fascinated with creating the perfect race? Hilter. With the power of the third reich behind him, Hitler and his ilk were obsessed with creating the ideal human being, who was white, blond, and blue eyed. You remember Hitler, right? He was EVIL! Not only did he GAS people, but he also was a vegetarian, and he hated freedom. Maybe the progressive of this country has something to say about this? Maybe you know a vegan or vegetarian? Do they think Hitler was the greatest leader to grace our planet? Food for thought. But I KNOW we won’t be hearing from them, will we?

Is that what we’re teaching children with this Pokémon hate simulator? Are we programming our children to create a hexadecimal holocaust? What is the so called perfect Pokémon? Will it be an electric mouse type, with yellow fur? Will that be the standard for these so-called UberPokémon? Powerful questions, people.

You know what the worst part of this is? Our children, our most precious resource, can trade their Pokemon with their friends online. You know who else is online? PERVERTS. Lots of them. Statistics show that at least half of the interwebs is perverts. Do you want your children hanging out with these pixelated pornographic pedophiles? What sort of monster are you going to allow in your children’s pockets? Once again, the Liberals of this country are letting their depravity soak into the very fabric of our ONCE great nation.

I want to know what you’re up against, folks. I want to get the power BACK into your hands. Your children should be playing wholesome games, like Call of Duty, where you play as a noble soldier protecting the homeland against terrorists. As parents, we should be able to blissfully purchase electronic toys without having to do any research about them whatsoever. These nerds have some sort of rating system, controlled by the Electronic Software Rating Board. Right now, the rating for this so-called game is ‘Pending’. People, let’s change that. Let’s change the rating to ‘This filth should never see the light of day’.

If you feel the same as I do, then I want you to LIKE and SHARE this post. If you want to continue to support hard hitting facts like these, then go to our store and buy a t-shirt. I also want you to sign an online petition, so these gamer goons KNOW we mean business. Then we both can forget about this entirely, as there will be something else that we can be absolutely outraged about tomorrow. I can’t wait.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. If this seems ridiculous, what you’re feeling is exactly my emotions every time someone posts to the Rebel media. Yes, it can be that absurd.

p.s.s. Honestly, Facebook rants are starting to feel less like people’s opinions, and more like a two minute hate.

p.s.s.s. I actually don’t have any children.