Been watching this "new" show on CTV. New is a somewhat relative term, as it has only started airing here, yet it seems that 2 seasons have already been aired some other place. Dexter, it's called. Quite neat, nice concept, but it just doesn't fit.

Show's about some serial killer dude who kills killers. I thought it was neat, but after watching it, I have to say, it's somewhat disappointing. Not the story, mind you. Story is fine. But the characters... The main character is so... romanticized. He's the perfect character of the "ideal" serial killer, the one that lies in some dark corner in all of us: the one who kills the bad ones. There's some Stockholm-ish feeling about this guy, charming, and kills cause of some sense of justice.

Character is also pretty lame: all textbook serial killer stuff, but none of the mentality. And get me right, I'm not saying I understand the tortuous minds of the mentally fucked-ups, but I consider myself having the qualifications for a degree in Criminal Mind-ology and Hannibal Lecter-ology. The guy Dexter's killer-ness is only skin deep: childhood trauma, an in-you-face type of lack of empathy, finds relationships difficult, and collects stuff from victim. Scratch the surface, and there's nothing more underneath.

The writers' attempt at adding a bit of humanity to the character completely ruins it. Not supposed to have any!!!
Where is the evil geniusness? Where is the youth spent torturing little creatures? Where is the low-profile average joe who seeks recognition through his "work"?

*sigh* The writers have tried too much to make the character appealing. They should've relied more on viewers' innate sense of fascination about serial killers and Stockholm. Instead, they've created a half-sentimental supposedly non-empathetic guy who actually has a sense of moral.

Law as religion

There's something uncanny about learning about the law. Not learning the law, mind you. Learning about it. About how it started, why we respect it, what makes us respect it, that sort of thing. The philosophy behind it all, what. I find it's a bit like religion, in the sense that you take what is given, and go with it. Many theories try to explain why we follow the law. Jus naturalism talks about our innate sense of justice.

We're now talking about positivism. Kelsen's theories. And in the end, you're left with this: you follow the law because it is based on another law, or norm, and in the end, everything is based on a Super-Norm, which you follow because you do. Which is a bit like religion. You do something because God says so. You do something because the law says so.

Which, come to think of is, is quite similar to the job of any scientist. The chemist studies the rules of chemistry, and does not really question where the rules come from, because they just ARE. The jurist studies the law, and does not question its origins, because it just IS.

There's something comforting, really, about not worrying about the Meta-norm, and taking it for granted. Because if it were to fall, it's the whole system that will come crashing down. Sometimes, I guess, willful blindness is just necessary.

Was going out the metro when I noticed something. They're installing new turnpikes, and they've kept the same width as the old ones. Nothing there, right? Well, as one knows, the diameter of the average midsection has been steadily increasing over the past years. People are making wider movie seats, wider bus seats, etc, to accomodate people's larger butte. But, the turnikes are staying at the same width. I wonder if there's something in that... Of course, the one nearest tho the booth is wide. Wonder what they had in mind...

I think they're trying to make the wider ones go through that. So that every time they want to get into the metro, they have to go "OK, let me in, I'm a fat-ass". Must do wonders for their ego.

Riiiiinnng! Riiiing!

Hello?

This is your destiny calling.

How may I help you?

Follow the path.

* * *

I was reading a document on copyright when it hit me. For the first time, I felt inspired. Not just a vague yeah-sure-I-could-do-that kind of feeling. No. That one was a wow-I-am-SO-doing-that feeling. Nothing big. Nothing flashy. No high-profile sue-till-you-drop aspirations.

Public domain. Copyright. More specifically, something in intellectual property. Protecting public domain works. Stop fraudulent copyright claims. Meaning, going after those who claim copyright on PD works.

Yeah. Dream on.

There is something incredibly depressing in finding out that the B you were so proud of actually amounted to barely more than 70%. Thank you for normalized grades. So now what? Not much, I guess. Just thinking, what will happen next year? what will happen when the people who kept the average so low gets the boot, thereby increasing the average by a surely substantial amount? Will I be able to keep afloat? Or is that their way to weed out the weaker members of the student body, until by the end, the B+ become C-, and the A-, Bs?

By then, if you still have a bit of confidence left, the world is yours.

So there I was, innocently browsing the LV forums and going about my own business, about to record the next chapter of the Comte de Monte-Cristo (which, by the way, is at its 70th chapter, go me!) .... So I was quietly going about my little business when all of a sudden, Cori ambushed me in the dark corners of a Private Message and asked me to record something for the Valentines' Day LV Podcast. She wanted something about LUURVE, and hopefully, something that wouldn't include "Bug off, Cory, that is so cheesy". Which of course, I just did. Sorry Cory.

Why do I love LV? Hmmm...
Well... WHY DO I love LV? The easy answer would be because it's fun, because of the great people who are there, because reading is fun, even when I don't always have time to read... because, really, LV is just so darn COOL.

But there's something deeper than that. A deeper kind of connection. And it would sound cheesy if I just say it like that, so I decided to write a little poem, because there's nothing like a cheesy poem to convey a cheesy idea. And it's the good kind of cheese, mind you.

So, on this Valentine's Day, here's my poem, dedicated to the dedicated volunteers at LV.

billions of souls in the universe /--/--/-/
billions of stars in a galaxy /--/--/-/
I found a voice among all voices -/-/-/-/-
A voice that told a story -/-/-/-

A voice that roams across the seas -/-/-/-/
To whisper in your ear -/-/-/
The tales of long-forgotten cities -/-/-/-/-
For one and all to hear -/-/-/

I gave the world a part of me -/-/-/-/
I took a tale and set it free -/-/-/-/
And then one day when I'll be gone -/-/-/-/
my voice will carry on -/-/-/

Have you ever come across someone, someone so offensive, that you just wish you could hit them with a club? Some people who are so awesomely incoherent, and some plain stupid or plain ignorant, but who think oh so profoundly that they are right and that you are an idiot, a thorough idiot if you should ever question HIS beliefs?

Those people who call your ideas unlikely and fallacious, but fail to see it in their own?

I know someone around -- if you can ever say you "know" someone on the web -- who just makes my blood boil.
According to him, saying "I own this and can do whatever I want with this" is fundamentally the same as saying "Everyone owns this and can do whatever they want with it." We're talking here about online data.

Right. Yeah, sure, except for the "I" being replaced by the "everyone", the rest is pretty much the same. But don't be saying it makes NO difference at all!

Somewhere, I had made a joke about the monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare. Or chimps, rather. He said since it's impossible to have infinity, such considerations are useless and they'll never come up with Shakespeare. And the same guy turns around to speculate about the possible malicious taking-over of OUR free, public domain data, by an evil-intentioned hacker who would roam the web to delete all our files, in order to monopolize the selling of it. For someone who can't imagine infinity, he sure has a lot of imagination!

And THEN, he calls the community totalitarian, because we have admins who make decisions.


I wish we could have stupidity filters.