Blowing off Steam

First, I'm not in a foul mood. I usually post about things I like and look forward to. Today, this is a bit of a pessimistic post in the sense that it's about things I don't like.

 

 

 

What inspired me to do this post is this: there was a terrible blow done to the internet - the trailer for 50 Shades of Gray came out. Help us all.

 

I don't dislike things that are popular because they are popular. On the contrary, there are some popular things that I do like (some of which are more popular than they should be), but one thing that annoys me is when something of poor quality is popular.

 

 

My list:

 

 

 

TV

- almost anything on FOX. There are some exceptions though. Fox News Network is a joke. If I see something I like, I'll wait until it's finished so I won't get all invested, only to have the plug pulled.

- CNN. Great comedy channel! The journalism and politically bias is laughable, and over-the-top patriotic. For world news? BBC.

- Reality TV. Tom Petty had a great quote about singing competition shows. Sure, some of the singers that have won, or been on the show do have talent, but really - how many seasons of American Idol do we need??

- long-running series. When I check up on a show on NBC, ABC, etc... every once and a while I look to see how many seasons there are. The problem is, after a while, the show gets stale and no longer good, or many elements of what made it good are lost. Because of this, the show tends to fizzle out of greatness as the end nears. You showrunners and writers out there have a story to tell? OK, around the 5+ year mark, you might want to think of where the overall story of the show (not episode, or season) is headed and consider wrapping it up soon, or head it in that direction. 

- less and less people are watching TV 'on TV' these days. Waiting a week per episode is silly. Netflix has it right - post the whole season at once as a whole! 

- The Walking Dead . Comics are better. After the first season, it plummeted.

- True Blood .The vampires (fangs mostly) look cheap and silly, and it's basically a vampire porn soap opera.

- Dr Who . I don't see what the fuss is all about, it's silly and campy.

 

 

 

MUSIC

 

- new pop music. There are some good tunes out there, and some pretty bad ones. Honestly, have you heard what teenagers and fans of top 40 listen to??

- radio stations that play the same 6 songs 4 times a day just because they're new. Switch up your rotation. Play older songs by an artist who is still releasing the new music this month. 

- how a single is determined. Sometimes the ones that don't make it to the radio are the best ones on the album.

- I get it that CDs are on their way out ('Mastered for iTunes' is great!!), but still - they, and other discs formats should not be 'neglected' or thought of as an afterthought. I noticed that in the past five years or so, CDs are poorly packaged. You can be eco-friendly without having your discs sliding all over the place or getting damaged due to poor packaging.

 

 

 

BOOKS

 

- Dan Brown. He needs to change it up a bit, especially with where his Robert Langdon stories are concerned. I'm convinced that he's a big Ninja Turtles fan. The only Italian artist that wasn't featured in any of the books whose name was also used for the Turtles so far is Donatello, as far as I know. The stories make for better films, I find, than reading. Sure it may be suspenseful, easy-reading. But it's not good writing.  

- Twilight, or anything by Stephenie Meyer. Has anyone heard of her since after Breaking Dawn or The Host? That, and she's not a very good writer and sending very bad messages to the teen readers.

- 50 Shades. It's Twilight for the Twilight fan's Mom, or when the Twilight fan passes puberty. There are better ways out for you ladies to blush when reading your dirty books - Sylvia Day is apparently a much better writer, and there's a series of romance novels even I would consider reading by an author named Diana Gabaldon [Outlander] In fact, one of my motivators for writing, aside from the fact that I enjoy it and have stories to tell is this - "If Twilight and 50 Shades got published...surely anything can, right?"

- Any new J.K. Rowling book....that isn't related to the Harry Potter / Wizarding World realm / mythos fandom. I applaud you for wanting to branch out. I just don't care for your non-Harry material, that's all. It seems like this whole 'Robert Galbraith' stuff is her way getting attention. We know it's you, Rowling! It's also mildly annoying that the book got huge because we found out she wrote it. Shouldn't a book be huge because it's good instead? I also hear that Casual Vacancy wasn't even that great either. I may watch the series though, but I have little to no interest in reading the story.    

- people that dislike George R.R. Martin because he takes too long. Fine, I get it - you want the next book. Guess what? So do I. Stop bitching and moaning and thinking that he'll die or any of this. Considering that some people call themselves 'fans' they are incredibly rude, pessimistic and negative. Look at the years in publication for Tolkien's Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and Silmarillion.

- ever since The Hunger Games, it seems as if almost every book that Goodreads offers on their 'First Reads' contest that's a YA book wants to imitate either Hunger Games or Divergent. It would be cool to have a YA book about Joan of Arc, if none exist already. Start a new trend!  

- Little Brown for publishing Twilight

 

 

 

MOVIES

 

- 3D . Not everything needs to be in 3D, and 3D doesn't always make it better. I praise directors like Christopher Nolan for opting not to use it because it's popular. I agree that more film makers and studios etc should be leaning more towards IMAX and the marvels that can be accomplished on this larger film canvas. 

- Michael Bay. I really dislike your movie making style. It was acceptable for the first Transformers movie, but for the most part your films are like a really bad hangover - a loud, explosive, mess. I will say that his best movie is The Rock, though. 

- when a trailer tricks you...in a bad way. Either the best parts are in the preview, you are mislead (in a bad way) from what the movie's about. Some trailers and teasers out there are far more effective, as they get you curious about what the movie is about. The very first Transformers teaser was pretty good, so where the teasers for Star Trek with the construction of the Enterprise, and some of J.J. Abrams other films, as well as Christopher Nolan where they don't reveal much, and get the viewer interested.  

- Star Wars started going down in quality after 1983, except for those Timothy Zhan books.

 

 

 

VIDEO GAMES

 

- why do we need a Call of Duty (or even Assassin's Creed) game every single year like sports titles? I would love to see some older games have sequels or get re-done. Hexen III perhaps? Medal of Honor should get a comeback. Maybe Unreal III? (no, not Unreal Tournament]

- some the current / next gen systems minor faults. Nintendo: the wii u hard drive is too small. Sony + Microsoft: why no backwards compatibility?   

- console wars fanboys.

 

...and that's the end of things I dislike or get annoyed by. I'm sure not all of you agree with what I said, but I hope I've given reason enough to justify my dislike.

 

I understand some of you will stop following my blog after this post.