Eye Eye Eye

I'm typing a big post. Eye hurts. Finiah later.
Tomato

My Grandpa's over.....

....... so no post for you.

Check out the vlogbrothers instead.

NERDFIGHTERS!
Tomato

The DeLorean- Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory

Oompa Loompa, doompity do,
I've got a perfect puzzle for you.
Oompa Loompa, doompity dee,
You're reading my blog, why not listen to me?

What do you get when you take a young child,
Give him a tape and then let him go wild?
You get pop culture burned into his brain
There's simply no need to explain!

Oompa Loompa, doompity doo
I've got another puzzle for you
Oompa Loompa, doompity da
Listen to me and you will go far

What makes a film from'71
A timeless classic and truckloads of fun?
Try a great leading actor and cool set design
You'll makee a movie simply divine!

Oompa Loompa Doompity Doo,
I've got a final puzzle for you
Oompa Loompa Doompity Dee, if you read this, you'll make me happy.

How can you avoid a tragic misstep?
In the '06 remake, cast Johnny Depp.
Though Wilder is great, Depp embodies the role.
A twisted, offbeat, whimsical soul.

I can't choose, I can't choose, both versions are awesome!

Oompa Loompa Doompity Doo
I enjoyed this post, and I hope you will too!
Come back soon for more bloggy fun.
That makes this post officially done!


That was.... awesomely fun to write! I actually have one more post in me, too!

Tomato

Bonjour, Monsieur Grape! May I Comb Your Fat-Free Cheese Mustache?

Found this at breakfast. Spawn of a grape and Egg Mcmuffin. Had to snap a picture. Excuse the protective face-scrambling.

I'm never eating fat-free cheese again.

Tomato

I Heart Typing Games.

I should be in bed, considering I've woken up at six the past five days, but I'm too busy playing Qwerty Warriors 2 (with two fingers)! Try it, will ya?

Tomato

Who Killed The Niche Cable Network? Part One

Good evening to you all,

After being put through the educational wringer for five days, I'm primed and ready for some hardcore, industrial trash-compactor thinking. And, to get you in the same mood, how about a little thinking exercise?

Here's your task: name one type of show (like a cooking show, reality show, police procedural, or drama) that is only on one cable network, you can't find it anywhere else. I'll give you a second. Step away from your monitor and ponder. I'll be here.

________________________________________________

Welcome back!

If my instincts are right, you couldn't turn up anything. You're not stupid. My blog readers are very deep thinkers. The problem here is that the concept of the specialty cable network is very much dead. And it didn't die naturally. Somebody killed it in cold blood. The first victim was MTV.

MTV stands for Music Television. Pretty simple idea: TV about music, which includes, by my definition, singing competitions, documentaries about musicians, and of course, music videos. I just looked at twelve hours worth of MTV listings (7pm on 8/26 - 7am on 8/27) and I didn't find a single music related program. All of them were reality shows. I see a bit of a problem there.

It's apparent that MTV did this because shows like Survivor and The Real World were becoming hits. The problem is that if you keep copying old hits, what's going to happen when people get tired of the new thing? Who'll come up with the new new thing?

The BIGGER problem, consequently, is this. If other networks start copying off of you, and other networks copy off of networks that are copies of you, and, in turn, other networks copy off of those, what's stopping us from having a whole TV with 274 channels that are homogenized, cookie-cutter clones of the other 273? The scary answer to that question is nothing. Think about it.

You're president of XYZ Network. If 123 Network, your competitor, is airing a genre of programming, such as reality, and whooping you in thw ratings, and you had to greenlight a show, would you go with a reality show similar in format to 123's reality show, or a risky sci-fi drama?

As a logical buisiness move, you'd go with the first option. In part two Sunday, I'll show you the other side of the coin, and why, in making the "logical" desicion, you would've shot yourself in the foot. And the best way to illustrate that is to put another network under the microscope.

See you then!

Tomato

Micheal Jackson's Death Ruled A Homicide.

Acorrding to NBC, the coroner's office says MJ's death was homicide. Cue me downing a gallon of salt grains.

Tomato

E-mail Correspondence is off!

You voted. I listened. No more insta-updates will be dropped in your inboxes. Sidenote: Please do not us my real name in the comments. People from other sites are visiting this blog, and at the risk of one of them bring a crazed megastalker, I wished to be referred to as one of the following:

Oh Mighty Majesy King of Narnia Tomato
Fluffy
That Guy
That Guy Over There
Hey, You!
Douglas Adams' Trans-Dimension Twin From An Alternate Universe Over Yonder

or

Tomato

Thanks,
Tomato

Should I Discontinue Automatic Mail Updates?

Now that I've done this blog for a while, it's pretty much out there, You know it exists, and multiple people have contacted me saying that since they check the blog anyway, they don't need them. If it's unneeded, I don't see a reason to do it. I could go either way (I know when the blog is updated!) Besides, we're going to be on a pretty consistant schedule starting tomorrow, on account of school starting. For future reference, the schedule will look like this:

Monday-Thursday: Nothing (Depending on how busy I am)
Friday: News/Opinion Post
Saturday: DeLorean Post
Sunday: News/Opinion Post

So, I come to you, the readers, with this question:

Should I discontinue email updates?

If you think I should, vote agree

If you want them to continue, vote disagree

Also, new post below.

Tomato

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Dear News Media,
I hate to tell you this, but we're breaking up. You just haven't been satisfying my needs, so I've.... gone to other sources. It just seemed like you weren't interested in me any more, always gazing at those good looking advertisers. And, I'm sorry, but I just can't deal with that kind of competition. Look at how many heads you've stepped on to get to me. You need to straighten your priorities. Iran is on the verge of civil war... and you just don't care, telling me about weight loss and pasta sauce. When my privacy was being threatened by bills like the ACTA, you just turned a blind eye, only worried about how you could get maximum covereage from your old flame Micheal. Sure, you try to bring me back with gimmick like tickers, i-reports, and EXCLUSIVE NEWS that'll be all over the next day. And you keep bringing up all your old boyfriends and their ex-girlfriend and telling me lies about them to try to make them look bad, try to impress me. And what really drove me to do this was when I realized one critical thing: to you, I'm disposable. I could stop taking all of your sweet talk, but as soon as I leave your side, you'll be flirting with 20 other people. I'm tired of it. Maybe, if you reorganize your priorities, we can be friends again. But for now, I'm done.

Sincerly
Tomato

Phlegmy Lung

Feeling a bit under the weather today. Can't motivate myself to write a post. My chest is all phlegmy. Bleargh. Considering school starts in 2 days, you'll probably hear from me Friday. Until then, enjoy this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l69Vi5IDc0g

The DeLorean: Kirby's Dreamland

It's not technically afternoon yet, but it will probably be by the time I'm finished with this post, so good afternoon. I'm starting a new series of blog posts today called The DeLorean. The premise is simple: Every Saturday, I take you on a guided tour of my early childhood by unearthing that era's pop culture relics. I'll usually start off with a breif history of whatever nostalgic thing I'm spotlighting, for all of you that don't know about it, and then reminisce about what made it unique or special to me. So, let's park the DeLorean around 2001, inside a doctor's office.

Now, most likely, it was either me or my brother sitting on that examining table (our mom usually brought us both along.) And, if you were the lucky brother that day, i.e. not getting your ears and such checked, you'd be sitting there with a Gamboy Color, prodding at it while the other of the pair was brought through a gamut of testing. For all of you playing along at home, the Game Boy Color looked like this:

Ahhh, the memories! (Ours was yellow, too.)

We had three games: Pokemon Blue, Dr. Mario, and Kirby's Dreamland. My brother, being older, automatically took to Pokemon (that was the craze back then!) with its complex statistical gameplay. I, on the other hand, always had Kirby in the cartridge slot.

Now, for those of you unaware of Kirby, he sucks. Literally. You see, your goal in Kirby is very Mario-esque: get to the end of the level, jumping platforms and defeating enemies, often with a "boss", a powerful foe that takes many hits to defeat, at the end of the level. Kirby's gimmick however, is that he could open his mouth and suck in enemies and other objects. From here, he could either spit them at other enemies or swallow them to gain thier powers. For example, if you have an enemy who attacks by breating fire, you can swallow him and be able to breathe fire yourself. If you have an enemy that can roll up into a ball and charge at you, you can swallow her and be able to do the same. There's one level I remember where you fight a giant evil tree (knock on wood!), There are no enemies to suck. Instead, the tree shakes down giant, bowling-ball sized apples that roll at you, damaging your health. To win, you've got to suck these apples in and spit them at the tree. (This is depicted on the game's box art above.)

What drew me to the Super Tough Pink Puff was a combination of original gameplay (eating enemies?!!) and the fact that it was challenging, but not pull-your-hair-out in frustration difficult. This made it perfect for my younger hand, who weren't at the time accostumed to games. This is a game that bridges gaps between young and old gamers, casual and seasoned gamers, male and female gamers, the list goes on. Nobody, and I mean nobody, will say no to a good Kirby game, making it a perfect gift for a son, daughter, niece, younger cousin, or nephew.

And I'm also happy to report that the Kirby games have stayed strong to this day, unlike other games that seem to have faltered (coughSonicTheHedgehogcough). Kirby has made many appearences on many other gaming systems, both handheld and console. These including the Game Boy Advance, Gamecube, and DS. (The DS game Kirby Superstar Ultra, a remake of the game Kirby Superstar for the Super Nintendo, is REALLY good. When we lost our original Gameboy Kirby cartridge, I quickly used some birthday money to snap that one up, and it doesn't dissapoint.)

I must add, however, that Kirby has not made a showing on the Wii, as of this writing. He does appear in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but he does that alongside a host of other characters that already have a game series, so it doesn't count. (PLEASE, Nintendo, give Kirby a Wii game, PLEASE!)

Overall, the Kirby series is proof that an original premise can sell a game, and because of that premise, it was a hallmark of childhood.

I'll see you tomorrow for a news post, and be back here next Saturday for another DeLorean.

There is no, life I know, to compare with pure imagination!

See you tomorrow!

Tomato

P.S. Check out this music from Kirby's Dreamland. Such an earworm, Green Greens!

EDIT; ARGGHH! Spacing issues. When I put a space with Enter, it just ignores it. Anyone know how to fix this?

A request

Tomato here with a small request,
Whenever you leave a comment, please sign your name. I like to know who is reading my blog. I assume that you're either

A. A friend/family member
B. One of my friends from TZ
C. Somebody completly new who I've never met before.

If A, shoot me an email telling who you are.
If B, shoot me a PM telling me who you are.
If C, welcome to the blog.

I'm just getting curious...

Tomato

I Love To Wash In Your Old Blackwater

Image from Wikipedia

Good morning to you all,

I was originally going to post about a piece of personal childhood nostalgia in a series of posts called the DeLorean. But, a bigger matter took priority last night. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but everything here is so in line and so connected, something has to be up.

Two days ago, an article was published in the New York Times about a company called Blackwater USA, now called Xe, being used by the CIA in less than legal ways. A quick Google search on these guys reveals a lot of unsettling information. For one, they were allegedly involved in a counterrorism program, using their facilities as training bases. Secondly, there are tons of murky allegations of arms dealing and other illegal activities.

But those are are alleged, unrelated incidents. One thing that IS concrete is that Blackwater's vice-chairman is somebody named Cofer Black, who had a tenure as both the Directorate of Operations and the Director of the Counterterrorist Center for the CIA. Right after he left the CIA, Blackwater snapped him up.

And the most definitive piece of evidence is that the current chairmen of the CIA, Leon Panetta,

acknowledged that a secret program involving Blackwater to assasinate Al Qaeda members had been partaken, but they weren't sucessful. This was witheld from Congress for EIGHT YEARS.

I apologize if this post seems rushed or hurried. I just wanted to scratch the surface of this unfolding controversy. Plus, I just learned of this last night.

I honestly don't know what to make of this, but it's significant.

So, comment and vote, please. If you think it is okay for the CIA to withold information from Congress and the rest of the government, click agree. If you think Congress should've known about this from day one, click disagree.If you're on the fence, click unsure.

Tomorrow, I'll take you to the first stop in a nostalgic tour of my early childhood in The DeLorean.

See you then!

Tomato

EDIT: Yes, I'm aware there are spacing issues. I apoligize. I've tried to go in and fix them, but Blogger's being a bit of a jerk to me right now. I'll try to fix them ASAP.

Tomato

What's Wrong With This Picture?

NOTE: This topic is pretty darn serious. Some of these images aren't suitable for kids, and some of them may offend you, but we're highlighting a very important issue today that I think you'd be better off knowing.

Good morning to you all,

Today, we're here to talk about cheesecake, and I'm not talking about the dessert. It's very delicious, enjoyable, and people who enjoy it have good taste, unlike the cheesecake we're talking about today.

Cheesecake is defined as a type of art in a comic that exploits women and young girls. And it looks like this:

Or this:

Now, as much as I have a problem with the first image, with its many conveiniant holes, (from Comic Book Resource. Check 'em out.) I have more of a problem with the second. For those not aware, Supergirl is Superman's Kryptonian cousin. She's also 16. Think about that. She's 16.

If this was an exception to the rule, not the norm, I'd be angry, but not furious. But, you should meet Mary Marvel, 16 as well.

I have even more of a problem with this image, as it's drawn by the otherwise excellent and awesome Alex Ross. He doesn't usually resort to this.

I don't need to tell you that this is gross, sick, and wrong. Seriously, if this was a real person's photo, you'd get arrested for it. The real question, though, is this: What drives an artist/writer/comics company to do this?

It's kind of sad, really. The truth is that this was probably editorially mandated, which means that Dan Didio, head honcho of DC Comics, told Alex Ross to draw the cover this way. You don't argue with your boss. And why did he do that? Sales. 95% of comic readers are middle-aged men. Like it or not, they want this stuff. It sells books.

That being said, I think the reason why there are not many women reading comics is that underage superheroines are dressed like this. It's disrespectful. And don't tell me girls don't like comics. The Dark Knight was the second-largest grossing movie of all time, and to acheive those kind of numbers, you've got to have cross-gender appeal. Same goes for Iron Man, a smash hit with both genders. Smallville, about a young Superman, is one of the most popular shows on the CW with female audiences. The problem is that this kind of art is acceptable in the eyes of the artists, writers, and editors of DC Comics.

This is how you draw a woman:

Cover to DC: The New Frontier Absolute Edition , written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke

Cover to DC: The New Frontier Volume 1, by Darwyn again.

Cover to New Frontier Volume Two

And this is how you draw a girl:

No cheesecake required.

The bottom line here is that comic book sales are dropping like a rock, and if comic companies want to stay in business, they need to bring in the female audience. And this

is not the way to do it.

Do you think this is acceptable? I don't.

If you agree with this statement, click the agree box. If you disagree, click disagree. You know the drill. Also, you can make your voice heard in the comments section.

(Thanks to Ocassional Superheroine for the images. Link in the sidebar.)

Thanks,

Tomato

Check Yes Or No (Or Unsure)

(Great song, by the way!)

Good evening to you all,
Hate to do two post in one day, but I just found a nifty little gadget that was so cool and perfect for this blog! Now, beneath each the posts, next to the comments section, there are three little boxes marked YES, NO, and UNSURE. If you agree with the opinion in the post, click the YES box. If you don't, click NO. If you're still on the fence, click UNSURE. Once you navigate away from Ripe Thoughts, the blog records which box you clicked and makes a running count. This'll allow everyone to see where the readership of Ripe lies on that particular issue.

And since this gadget was not in place when I wrote Gold Is Something You Wear Around Your Neck, I'll propose a question for all of you to vote on using the new boxes:

Is the fact that monetary value now comes in representative form, such as bills, checks, and credit cards hurting society in the long run?

Vote with the boxes, and continue to comment with the "comment" button. Make your voice heard, like my aunt did. (Thanks, Tete! :D )

See you tomorrow, for a post on feminism, bigotry, and the potrayal of women in comics. It should be good!

Tomato

Gold Is Something You Wear Around Your Neck

(This image is from Wikipedia.)

Good morning to you all,

Recently, I had two related conversations: one with my provider (basically an army commando whose job is to twist me into a dodecahedron), and one with my grandpa's friend. They were about how things, mainly currencies, are becoming more digital. Let me explain.

Throughout time, we've given and gotten things with value. When the settlers traded with Native Americans, both parties saw something they wanted, a physical object, and traded it for the physical object in their possession that the other person wanted. The settlers had guns. The Native Americans wanted guns. The Native Americans had pelts. The settlers wanted pelts. So, they exchanged their physical possessions.

Now, I don't think you're stupid. I'm explaining this because I have to make a simple point to explain a complex subject.

Pretty soon afterwards, people discovered gold. It was shiny and malleable, along with a whole host of other properties. Some people had it. Other people wanted it. So, products like corn were sold in exchange for bars of gold. Somebody would give somebody else the gold, and the other person would give them the corn. One person now had a physical ear of corn, and one person now had a physical gold bar. They both had value.

Fast forward to a little later. There was one problem. As people started to accumulate more gold, they needed to carry it. And gold, well, it was kinda heavy, even if you molded it into coins. So, somebody came up with the idea of a paper note that was representative of X amount of gold, to be exchanged at a later date. It was called a dollar: a paper note representative of physical monetary value, like a gold bar.

And then, people got tired of carrying around dollars (why?) and started carrying around checks, paper notes that represented paper notes that represented physical monetary value (gold bars).

And then, people got tired of checks, so they carried around credit cards, plastic cards that represented digital data that represented paper notes that represented something of physical monetary value (gold bars).

See where I'm going? Where is the physical gold bar behind the dollar, an originally purely representative currentcy medium. WHERE is the actual value?

And the bigger questions: Will credit cards be represented by something like its siblings were? Is this why our economy's failing?

I told my provider all of this, and she said the following:

"Gold is something you wear around your neck."

Do you believe this statement? Please comment if this struck a chord with you, whether you agree or disagree.

Think,
Tomato

What IS this?

Good evening to you all.

My name is Tomato Surprise, and one of my favorite parts of life is living it. Let me explain: there are so many different things to ponder, so many facets of ideas swirling around me. Really random things. I express these thoughts all over life and the Internet. Recently, I had corrective spinal surgery and took advantage of the hospital's CarePages, a blog you could use to update all of your friends and family on your recovery. As I progressed more, the blog became less and less about my recovery and more and more about personal musings like politics, music and more. It's now time to say goodbye to the Carepage and hello to a new era of Tomato-y goodness. That being said, I want to go over a few things.

Thing 1: I encourage discussion about topics I blog about. I hope for this blog to be a sort of loop of conscience. I'll post about a hot-button issue, or something on my mind. You guys can then comment on it, discuss it, and ponder it. Your discussion may lead to a whole new train of thought leaving the station of Tomato, which you may, in turn, discuss, which leads to a new train of thought and so on. There's a button below this post that says "leave a comment". This excercise is useless if you don't click that button. I don't want to just hear myself talk.I've even made it so that you don't even have to make an account to post a comment. Just click and write. In this country, one of the things I love is free speech. That's what this blog is about. And I want to see it here. That being said, I'm filtering all comments for vulgar language, slurs, and disrespect toward others. This will not be tolerated. So, your comment will not appear until I approve it.

Thing 2: You may not agree with all the points I make, and that's fine. I may not agree with all the points you make, and that's fine, too. But, let's be respectful.

Thing 3: I'll do a post about this later, but in the sidebar, there's links to other blogs I like. They may be funny or intelligent or both, but for whatever reason, they're there and you should check 'em out, OK?

Now that I'm done establishing rules, let's go over some of the stuff I'll be talking about in the coming weeks, mainly Friday through Sunday.

* Michael Vick is signed to the Eagles: Good descision or bad descision?
* The death of the niche cable network.
*A Tale of Pasta Sauce and Pop Stars: Who Diluted News Media?
* Photos from one of the best charity events out there. And I WAS THERE!
* What's wrong with this picture? Women in Comics
* 1984: How To Revive Language Arts
* Pixar's movie-tie in merchandise is not performing well. Should we be worried?

Also, most of you will have gotten a Blogspot alert when I posted this. If not, let me know.

Thanks for reading! I'll see you later.
Tomato