If you’ve seen the show, you know that it’s the best thing you had ever seen up to that point in your life, by and large.  That said, it struck me as shocking, bizarre, outrageous even, that there were *5* ratings of 1-star-out-of-5.  That is to say, *5* people rated it the lowest possible value.

To illustrate the point, these people could theoretically buy a DVD of this:

and give him a rating-out-of-five no lower than they gave BBC’s Planet Earth– and no part of the Planet Earth literature describes itself as “:P If you liked this you will like me haha”.

So what do these reviews say?  How could these people possibly account for this massive departure from the rest of the voting corpus?  What explanations could they have?  Let’s have a look at each one:

Disappeared, by Wendy A Walker, Feb 6 2009

As already indicated to the seller, this product never actually got to the intended gift recipient. I asked for a mail trace and have yet to hear back. Communication with them so far has not been replied to, so am not sure what to do.

Wendy thought that because she bought a (likely used) copy of the DVD set from some internet skid and said skid didn’t actually send the DVD set to Wendy’s lucky gift recipient, that she should go ahead and rate the entire program 1/5.  Wendy, thank you for sharing the details of your pathetic internet purchase attempt, but I believe that the DVD series is not responsible for your inability to do anything right.  If it’s the thought that counts, I’m sure whomever was on the receiving end of your attempt-at-giving is just as grateful for the 5 to 10 seconds you spent buying them some used shit online from whatever shady character’s prices had the rockiest bottom.

These three take their technical issues out on the series:

my copy is not working, by odel69, Feb 11 2008

my copy is not working. i read that other customers had the same problem… is there any solution? … i really want to watch this series…

No, there is no solution.  They just released non-working versions, end of story.  Strangely, most people still rated it 5/5.

Would love to see it, by Fresca, Mar 26 2008

R.CAIN,I would like to know the procedure involved with the FIRMWARE update (dvd/internet???)   I thought the dvd’s were blank, so I returned them and ordered again. Unfortunatly, the 2nd were the same. Please provide me with the info on how to make these work on my hd dvd player.

Blah blah blah DVD/INTERNET???  FIRMWARE update?!?!!?!?  1/5!!!  If you’re talking about firmware updates for your PIECE OF SHIT DVD PLAYER you have completely MISUNDERSTOOD the nature of your problem and where you should be posting your one-star-ratings.

obsolete, by Gillian Clark, Mar 26 2009

Have not been able to view this DVD as when we tried to play it we found our DVD players do not play HD format. Then discovered that HD format has been obsolete for over a year. So why is this product still being sold at full price with no warnings?

This is the equivalent of saying: “Hey, bought this bicycle would love to have ridden it but I have no legs and I can’t ride it so why didn’t they say BICYCLE FOR PEOPLE WITH TWO LEGS like there were no warnings or anything and it was sold at full price.”

This is how it works, Gillian: You are the consumer.  You have to “warn yourself” by LEARNING and READING INFORMATION.  If I make a hat I don’t say “WARNING: HEAD REQUIRED.”  If I have a COMPUTER I don’t buy an XBOX360 game and think “SILVER DISC GO IN, SILVER DISC MAKE GAME!@!!!@!@!1  GAME MAKE HAPPY!!@!!@! ”

Finally:

Same footage of Disneynature’s Earth., by Ronda Collicutt, Sep 30 2009

I was quite disappointed in BBC’s Planet Earth. Two days ago I purchased Disneynature’s Earth and I was impressed with the footage on Blu-ray for 29.99.   So I thought maybe BBC’s Planet Earth would be awesome to watch, so I purchased it today for 89.99 and I have never been so ripped off in my entire life. It included the same scenes and footage of Disney for triple of the price. WTF? Outraged and I cannot return it now as it is out of the original package and that I am watching it right now.

RONDA is outraged!  NOBODY rips off Ronda!  Not if they intend to be safe from a 1-star review!  Ronda is a cool cat and smart cookie!  Though, smart cookie as she is, and as angry as she is at how Planet Earth ripped her off with it’s $90 price and stolen Disneynature Earth footage, she failed to realize that Earth was released in 2007, Planet Earth in 2006.  You know, like, after.  Still!  STILL!  Planet Earth Inc. STILL RIPPED HER OFF, with their TIME-REVERSE THEFT OF MATERIAL!

Ronda also must have overlooked the first line in the description of Disneynature’s Earth: “A nature documentary compiled from the vast footage of the BBC’s and The Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth series and…“ but that’s okay!  She was too busy being shrewd and angry and ripped off!

In fact, she claims, she’s never been so ripped off in her in her entire life!  Why, this RIP OFF TIME-REVERSE THEFT SERIES is three times the price!  Ronda again, eyes squinted and tear-filled, face red with intelligence, hands clenched in sheer perspicacity, fails to note that Disneynature’s Earth is 90 minutes long, whereas Planet Earth, an entire series, contains 10 50 minute episodes, as well as bonus features and a different narrator.  That’s at least 500 minutes, or over 5 times as much content.  Perhaps she believes the Planet Earth series is simply the Earth movie run back-to-back a few times.  If you subtract 90 from 500, you get 410 minutes, which is at least the amount of additional time Ronda should be kept safely off the streets, if it weren’t for her keen and perceptive nature.

Humanity gets.

All the other cards have to “follow suit” — you know, oh, a club, well, you have to be another club if you want in.

That shit is basically racist!

Not to mention conformist.  It’s sad really, it makes me sad.  Sad like a boy stroking the hair of his pony, right before it’s time for his pony to die.  His pony has gangrene.  His pony has gangrene! Guess riding through the rustswamp wasn’t such a great idea, huh?

So what is so CrAzY about the 8s?  They just change the suit.  In some versions of the game you can lay down multiples of the same number to effectively change the suit.  And in all versions, I can lay the same number card on top of yours to change suit.  Is that so crazy?  I don’t think the 8s are crazy at all.  If they are, then the game should be called “Crazy 8s And Sometimes All The Other Cards”.

But even the 8s aren’t always “crazy”.  Sometimes, when a player wants the suit to remain as-is, they will play the 8 and leave the suit unchanged.  Now that seems crazy!  But certainly it’s not the 8s fault.  It’s the fault of the player.  So the game should be called “Occasionally Crazy 8s And All The Other Cards Too”.

But what’s so crazy about changing suits?  A business man does.  A business man changes suits. Does that make the business man crazy?

If that business man is crazy, why are so many people investing in the business man’s business?  Maybe he’s only occasionally crazy too.  Perhaps while his suit remains constant at work, he’s not crazy.  But when he switches suits in the morning, or to go for an evening swim, then the business man is crazy.  Or maybe the investors are crazy.  But so many?  That almost seems like everyone is crazy.  But is everyone crazy?

I think it would be crazy not to change suits.  After all, nobody wears the same suit every day.  So really, everything other than changing suits is crazy, so the 8s are the least crazy of all.  So the game should be called “Crazy Everything Other Than The 8s Ocassionally, and Sometimes the Others Too”.

But ultimately, it’s up to the player using the cards, is it not?  For the player could pass, leaving all of his or her cards from being crazy.  Maybe holding on to your cards is the sanest possible thing– after all, holding on to a baby isn’t crazy.  Holding on to a baby isn’t crazy. So the game should be called “Crazy Players”.

But are the players crazy?  It seems to me that the players aren’t crazy at all.  They can, for example, remember all the rules.  Presumably they aren’t sociopaths, because this is a fairly social game after all.  Certainly playing cards isn’t crazy.  So the game should be called “Crazy”.

But is the game crazy?  It doesn’t seem like it’s really any different than any other game.  You have tokens, rules, and players.  So the game should be called “normal.”

But is the game normal?

Naw, that shit is CRAZY!

Groundless Assumption #1 : That this is a morning.
Groundless Assumption #2 : That this is good.

Okay, generally it is morning. Though, oft is the case, I will call someone who works in a “place of business” at around 12:05pm and they will proudly answer the phone with “Good morning, Gerhardt (for example) speaking…” and I will be quick to say “this is no longer morning.  If you check the time, it’s past noon.  Well past.  So stop fucking wasting my time giving me well-wishes for a time long past, which, thanks for asking, wasn’t good in the first place.”  I might as well say “Good September 11, 2001!” the next time I answer the phone.  Was September 11th good?  No.

It’s really important to consider that starting a day on a high, good note, may prime you for a day that doesn’t meet expectations.  You may be skewed towards high-hopes.  The day will very likely let you down.  After all, if every day is average on average, then starting the day well with a series of “Good morning!!!”’s from friend and family is going to give you an unrealistic positivity.  The day will let you down, and you’ll be full of hopelessness and misery by sundown.

I propose that we greet eachother in the mornings in a different way: by reminding eachother of the pain and suffering inherent to modern life.  Enough of this “good morning!” cheery bullshit.  Instead, say “FAMILY DIES IN FIRE” or “HEADLESS CHILD DISCOVERED”.  They don’t have to even be true.  It could be a general statement of malaise: “EVERYTHING ENDS IN PAIN AND DEATH.”  It could be made personal: “I’M GOING DOWN AND TAKING YOU WITH ME.”  Conjectures of what could be: “IF IT WASN’T FOR LAW YOU’D BE MY BITCH.” or of what never was: “MY LIFE IS AN ONGOING FAILURE WITHOUT HOPE.”

It could just be an unfortunate concept: “RAPE.”  Or a more illustrated concept: “RAPE WITHOUT JUSTICE.”  Or an appeal to a well-known narrative: “SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION THE MOVIE EXCEPT AT THE END THE WARDEN ISN’T DISCOVERED HE JUST KEEPS PROFITING AND TIM ROBBINS DIES IN SOLITARY AND NOBODY CARES.”

After a morning like this, a minefield of macabre, depressing, horrific, and tragic ideas and images, the most-likely-average day that follows will, by comparison, be a great day.

If it weren’t already past noon I’d tell you: “GANG BANG ULTRA AIDS-RAPE: NO JUSTICE.”

No, the song doesn’t end.  It goes on forever.  Don’t you see?  It’s just receding into the distance!  It’s just being taken elsewhere– you, stay put.  The art moves on.  But take note that the song lives and plays on for forevertude in Plato’s heaven!  …That’s some serious goddamned artist hubris right there.   Fuck THAT shit.  No art should end in a way that is a simulation of me walking away.  How passive.  How effete!

Films don’t fade away to nothing leaving the viewer feeling unresolved.  Nor do paintings.  Or photographs.  Nor books.  Somehow, musicians felt that they could get off easy with a little bit of audiophonic legerdemain, but it isn’t going to work anymore.

Money is a valuable commodity whose acquisition is difficult (and generally requires a withdrawal from another individual), so the more you have, the more unique you are.  Intelligence is not a limited resource in the same way but scarcity is arrived at through deviation from the norm; a “collection” that distinguishes the highly intelligent from the average.  These collections and indices must be socially appraised as positive, otherwise you achieve bad uniqueness.  Being crusted in dried smegma and reeking of human feces is extremely unique, but even the staunchest non-conformist would be unlikely found in such a state: despite the quick path to non-conformity.

A minority of people vociferously reject any idea of conformity with the sweaty heaving masses.  The sweaty, heaving masses, i.e. the average person, are seen as despicable, contemptible, and incapable.  By their appearance and behaviour the non-conformist seeks to establish, in a trivial way, the aforementioned uniqueness.  However, there are a few caveats: as it turns out, nearly all attempts at non-conformity are shallow and contradictory.

Conformity to Physics – at the grandest scale of all, the non-conformist must obey the laws of physics.  This may seem trivial: it isn’t.  Try as they might, the non-conformist must, with great anger, feel their flesh tugged downward (near something big and heavy, anyway).  With great anger, they must note that a balloon will attach itself to the wall after acquiring a static charge from them– in the very same way it would with any of the other conforming, interchangeable humans.

Conformity to Biology – The non-conformist is appalled: to have animal cells that function in the same way as the cells composing the balance of the world.  To have bones and joints supported by a musculature that has developed over millions of years.  To have eyes and white blood cells.  To have the same goddamned internal organs as that oafish turd on the subway.

Conformity to Ontogeny – The non-conformist, undoubtedly with immense discomfort, notes the progress of his or her physical being from single cell through all the same stages of development to the present.

Conformity to Species – All humans are humans.  How infuriatingly conformist.

Conformity to Broad Social Rules and Customs – Even the most clever non-conformist won’t brandish their genitalia in public, spit in an elevator, make prolonged eye-contact with a stranger, sleep on the floor of a bookstore, defecate in H&M, ride a dog about town, etc.

Conformity to Law – Similar to above: most non-conformists will conform to the laws of  a given society, such as rules for parking or punching people’s faces.

Conformity to an In-Group – The most disturbing fallacy of non-conformity is the existence of the in-group; this is the group to which the non-conformist conforms to a much higher degree than the average person.  In this way the conformist demonstrates a level of commitment to a peer-group that is not seen amongst “average people.”  It could be argued that having a very strong identification to a much smaller group is more non-conformist than a weak identification with a larger group: however as above, such weak identifications are already made in addition to the strong one.  This type of in-group behaviour could be called desperate uniqueness or pseudo-individualism.

Taken altogether, the above paint a bleak picture for the non-conformist: the options for alternative configurations are scarce and shallow.  Indeed, few are those who can be found to believe themselves “average” in the first place, a fact that renders the non-conformist’s rejections flaccid and hopeless.  In distancing themselves from and repudiating the idea of this mythical average every-man they contradictorily nurture an ignorant conformity that betrays a fundamental misapprehension of the world and their role within it.

I contend, however, that their politeness is false; is a travesty.  That below the large scale artifice of politeness is a whirlwind of nasty.

A rare candid shot of Queen Victoria during a lacrosse match

Take, for example, the Queen.  Who politer?  Why, she must define polititude.  Indeed.  However, politeness cannot run through the depths.

In fact, this queen sits uncomfortably on a chair.  Her queen blood is likely collecting in pools in her ass-cheeks.  Nothing polite about that.

As she sits stiffly, breathing measuredly in and out through her most noble of noses, the mucus membraine within dries to a crisp, forming large crusty snotballs that sit steadfast in an ocean of slime.

As she listens to the instructions of her handlers and the photographer, the inner walls of her ear canal become smudged in a sludge of yellow, fetid wax.

While waiting for the shutter to snap, the queen’s noble anus is clenched firmly shut by muscles largely outside her conscious control.  These muscles prevent the massive landslide of feces from sliding from her regal intestine.  If it weren’t for that one involuntary muscle, she’d be as malodorous and depraved as the most thoroughly alcohol’d reprobate.

Certainly the porcelain queen wouldn’t have armpits where odors fester and hairs slither out with reproachful  slowness– certainly, so polite is she, that a massive pubic bush is not straining against itself to levitate her regnant underpanties?  Certainly not.

While gripping her mighty staff, a raging orgy of bacteria is staged on every square inch of her body.  Her hands, her lips, her gums; all are ceaselessly engaged as host for a saturnalian fuckfest of microbes of all race, colour, and creed.

And yet, as her bowels churn and her anus grips and her viscera moan and her mucus dries and her earwax thickens and her bush explodes and her armpits fester and her microbes fuck, we still think her the paragon of politeness.

True politeness would have these foul bodily diseases under wraps.  True politeness isn’t merely engaging in behaviours that hide the unpleasant, it’s about eradicating such.  Yet modern politeness is little more than a collection of banal deceptions; legerdemain for a crusty upper-class to appear dignified over the savages.

I’d ask the Queen myself how she came to be so duplicitous: but I wouldn’t want to break up the orgy.

I, on the other hand, drink tea.  Without sugar.  A bag of leaves dunked in a bucket of hot water.  If you go into a forest, many puddles satisfy this criteria.  So, I’m understandably crestfallen to make my order at an SBucks.  I’m belittled.  Everyone else orders a wonderworld: I order a dustbin.  This is fine.

The problem, is at Tim Hortons.  They are by no means a SBucks-grade brand machine.  However, I must make this point: when I arrive at the counter, and place my order for an Earl Grey Tea– a black tea flavoured with Bergamot, an amazing substance all its own, far more so than sugar or cream–the attendant always, always, responds to my dismissal of milk and sugar by referring to my tea as plain.  The order recap: “Okay, you’d like a breakfast sandwich and a plain tea.” (“breakfast sandwich” added only for rhetorical cadence).

A plain tea?  Notwithstanding this being my unique morning beverage, the same one that SBucks presents with blazing fanfare, Tim Hortons, this is your beverage too.  Reminding me how plain this $1.50 tea is — when I can buy a bag of it for 9 cents — is not just the branding equivalent of smelling like urine, it’s tasting like it too.

And is about a 5% reduction in Morning Quality.

It was quite obvious when you stepped out of the elevator for but three seconds before returning that you hadn’t conducted your business– and how presumptuous of you to insist that I perhaps thought so.  Unless the business you had to carry out was to pass wind in the general area of HR before moving on upstairs, this fact is clear.

Sometimes people refuse to properly spread themselves out: there is an unspoken rule in an elevator: like particles of gas that expand their territories to fill their container with a uniform density, so too do humans spread themselves about an elevator.  Imagine walking into an elevator where three people were clustered awkwardly in the south-western quadrant?  Such a thing is highly unlikely.

Sometimes when there is a mass exodus, you will occassionally be left in a corner, with a single companion.  And somehow, this single companion is not “filling the void,” as it were: he still stands strangely close to you, despite the market flood of property in the area previously owned by those who exited on the sixth.  He is not spreading himself out.  He is not respecting the principle of uniform density.  And this is intolerable.

But the very worst infraction, the most unforgivable, is the senseless time spent shortly after getting on to a “down” elevator.  Many elevators do not have parking garages and find their lowest floor to be the concourse level.  And this is the level the vast majority of people will get off at.  Yet, for some reason, for some unknown goddamn reason, people getting on to the down elevator immediately run to number panel– is it not obvious at once that you are in an elevator with others?  Dear complete fucking idiot, is it not equally obvious that, so long as there is someone else in the elevator, and that elevator is going down, and your destination is the bottom floor, there is absolutely no logical, no rational, no excusable reason for you to be standing around staring at the panel of numbers?  What could you possibly conclude?  For fuck sake, stop embarrassing yourself and retarding the uniform density principle by stuffing yourself where you don’t belong.  Indeed, if you’re getting off at the bottom floor, you will never have to push a button if you are in the presence of someone else: you must only start thinking when you are alone.  Shame on you.

How often do you see someone get on the down elevator, mosey on over, all curious, all interested, all ready-for-action, over to the number pad, and see, as though it was unexpected, that someone had already set the elevator’s course to the desired coordinate?  Oh, well, excuse me, hey everyone!, gather around: a new captain has boarded the ship.  Well then, everyone, let’s take a moment to christen Lord Captain Elevator Fucking Moron the III.  At this point, the asshat will usually start smashing the door-close button — despite the fact that everyone is aware that it doesn’t speed anything up — in an attempt to wrench out some sort of reason supporting why they approached the control system to begin with.  Oh, we’re not to believe you’re an incoherent fuckwit, no sir, we’re to believe that you’re so important because you’re in a hurry, and in such a hurry that 1.5 seconds shaved off this elevator ride is worth the effort you’re putting into pressing that non-functioning button not once or twice, but several times, in rapid succession?  Is such urgency required when, really, and we all know it, you’re actually just making a non-verbal argument to all those watching about why it’s excusable that you have fucked up our uniform density and shanghai’d the navigation system?

Thankfully, we know better.

Indeed, so important it is, that I decided to make the very first post about it.

Stochastic processes, in particular, those involved in the political econo– ahh, fuck it, here’s a bunch of pictures of pineapples with sunglasses on!!!