Ryan Jones Blog – dotCULT.com Ryan Jones Blogs About Internet Culture, Marketing, SEO, & Social Media

The other day I ran into an old classmate from high school. It was a person I never really talked to before (in fact, I didn’t remember her name until she introduced herself.) We said hello, and continued on our way. That night when I got home, I had a MySpace request from that person. I ignored it. In fact, I get friend requests from tons of people that I barely know. Old classmates, people at the bar, friends of friends, and random strangers who just want to see my photos. I don’t approve any of them.

That doesn’t even cover the people who think the friend count is a contest and add as many people as possible just so they can say they’re more popular.

When I first made accounts on social networks I made one rule: If I wouldn’t invite you to a house party, you don’t get put on my friends list. See, when it said “friends” I took it to mean “friends” – not “anybody.”

This doesn’t sit well with many people. Some people actually get offended when you won’t add them as a friend. I fail to understand that.

You’re probably asking “what’s the big deal? Just add them and you won’t have to listen to them bitch.” But that right there is the problem with social networks. Once your friend list gets deluded, the service loses its value. Let me explain.

When you first sign up, it’s you and your actual friends. You post bulletins with inside jokes and humor at others expense. You post pictures of the party you went to last weekend, and you just basically let yourself be yourself. You can be the person everybody sees on Friday night. Everything is cool.

Then, you start adding “friends.” Your mom, your boss, the neighbor’s kid, your cousin’s kid, a few bands, some local businesses that you go to, and all the guys from work. Now, all of a sudden you’ve got a problem.

You can’t have your boss seeing the picture of you drinking out of a bottle of Makers Mark with a straw, and you need to hide those party pictures from mom. You know the ones I’m talking about.

You can’t blog about the prank you pulled at work anymore, or about how little you actually do in the office, or about the 700 Bic pens you took out of there last week because the guys from work now read it.

In a matter of weeks your social network has turned into a business card. It’s boring and bland, and not you anymore.

And that’s why people move social networks. It started with Friendster, moved to Myspace, and now it’s on Facebook. It’s an eventual cycle that really has no end.

Will some other social network come in and be #1? You can count on it – especially if your mom doesn’t have a profile there yet.

Looking at my RSS reader this morning, I couldn’t help but laugh. It seemed like all of the headlines were things that most of us already assumed for years.

Things like:

ABC study finds that all candidates embellish themselves. (duh!)

pentagon report shows no iraqi plan to assassinate Bush Sr.

McCain misses over 1/2 of senate votes (there’s a guy who truly cares about America – not himself)

Am I the only one who is saying “why is this news now?” Seems like it’s been news for the last 8 years.

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The New Jersey town of Jefferson Township is trying to pass a law that would (and I quote) ban the sale of “all equipment, products and materials of any kind that could be used for introducing into the human body a controlled dangerous substance.”

The story stems from 2 gas stations that have recently began selling glass pipes, zig zags, and bongs at the counter. It’s pretty common knowledge that most of these things aren’t used for hand rolling your own tobacco anymore. They’re used for smoking pot.

The fun part of this law though, is the wording. Just think of all the cool things that it effectively bans selling:

• Needles. More commonly used for flu shots and insulin, the law would force diabetics to get a prescription or something for their insulin needles.
• Dollar Bills – because rolled up they can be used for snorting coke. Of course, dollar bills aren’t sold (unless you’re at an ATM that charges a fee) so I guess these are still ok.
• Mugs. Last I checked alcohol was still a controlled substance, and many people like to pour their beer into a nice frosty mug. It’s back to drinking your Pabst out of a can now Cletus.
• Brownies! You know what I’m talking about. Cousin Bill’s special brownies. The only way to be safe is to ban the sale of brownie mix.
• Pipes. That’s the purpose of this law – and if your granfather doesn’t like it he can cut the filters off his Kools.
• Straws. Hey, there’s a recession going on. We can’t all afford to snort our nose candy through a Benjamin. Besides, the nice long bendy straws mean we don’t have to lean over so far. I guess it’s back to the pinch between your fingers method.
• Slurpees

. I’m not sure about you, but when I was in high school the only the a slurpee was used for was mixing vodka so the teachers wouldn’t notice.

• Mason Jars – because everybody is doing Jenkem now right?
• Enemas, because we wouldn’t want a repeat of this guy would we?

That’s about all I can think of. Am I forgetting anything?

I had a “man date” last night. By that, I mean Lennie called me up to see what I was doing and before i finished saying “eating spaghetti and watching Beowulf” he was somehow in my living room devouring a box of rice krispy treats.

Anyway, we watched Beowulf. This is normally where i’d say Caution: Spoiler alert but it’s fucking Beowulf. You should have read it in 9th grade – and if you didn’t I’m going to ruin it for you right here anyway. It’s like Titanic, or King Kong. The boat sinks, people die, the monster falls off the building – how else do you think he got down?

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s review the movie.

For the fans of the epic, the movie doesn’t really stick to it. It starts out with Hrothgar building his hall and Grendel coming, blah blah blah we all know (or should know) the story. Beowulf comes in and saves the day by ripping off Grendel’s arm. So far, we’re still sticking to the storyline.

When Beowulf kills Grendel, he is given the dragon cup by Hrothgar – the same dragon cup that isn’t mentioned here in the poem version. Ok, so Grendel’s mother comes in and takes her revenge. In the poem she kills 1 or 2 people (I can’t remember) but in the movie version she kills a LOT of people. OK, nice addition, gore is always good.

Speaking of gore, this movie has a LOT of it. If you’re a fan of limbs being ripped off, and blood being drank, then this movie is for you. The effects were pretty well done for an animation, but I can imagine that it looked really cool in 3D at the theater.

Alright, so here’s where things go all crazy. (here’s also where the real spoilers are since this differs from the original.)

Beowulf is sent to kill Grendel’s mother. At this time, it is revealed that Hrothgar is actually Grendel’s father. It’s a nice Oedipal twist, but it doesn’t really stick to the script. Anyway, instead of killing Grendel’s mother and bringing back her head like in the poem, Beowulf sleeps with her and brings back Grendel’s head.

That’s right, the mother somehow turns into Lady MacBeth and tells Beowulf that if he gives her a son and lets her keep the dragon cup, she will make him king and see that no harm comes to him. Upon returning, Hrothgar declares that since he has no son, Beowulf will be his heir. He then jumps off of the ledge into the ocean.

In the original story, it’s not told how Beowulf actually becomes king. They pull a Jesus style trick and leave out many years of his life – so I guess the producers actually had to invent something to explain it.

Ok so Beowulf is king, he’s got the king’s queen, and he’s got himself a little whore as well. Strangely, the queen doesn’t seem to mind. Now, the story gets back on track. The slave finds the dragon cup and brings it back to Beowulf. It’s not clear of the slave stole it from the dragon cave, but that’s what is supposed to have happened.

So now the dragon appears and starts burninating everything and Beowulf has to save the day. In a cool ironic twist, Beowulf actually chops off his own arm in the process of killing the dragon (which, we later learn is his son – another movie twist.) Beowulf dies as a result of his injuries, and then we see the cup wash ashore to the new king. The circle begins again.

Alright, so it’s a gory movie – but it doesn’t really stick to the plot much. In the original, Beowulf is a hero. I’ve even seen him compared to Jesus. In the movie, he has many faults (which, at least he later regrets.) I guess it makes for a more interesting character, but I was expecting the storyline to be the same.

In addition, I’m shocked that Christian groups weren’t protesting the movie in full force. There’s at least 3 scenes where the movie talks down on Christ (which, given the timeframe, panganism was still the major belief and Christianity wasn’t popular at all… at least they stayed true in this respect.)

Is it worth netflixing? Sure – but I wouldn’t buy this one. It actually made me want to rent the 2005 version just to compare.

The US supreme court will take a break from talking to baseball players and strippers today to actually consider something important. On the docket today is the case of DC v. Heller – a case that will decide where the second amendment applies to all individuals, or merely those in a militia or serving their country.

It could be a great win for gun-toting Americans, or it could be the start of a potential uprising.

The case came about over the Washington DC law that bans handguns and requires all shotguns and rifles to be disassembled or contain trigger locks. With their city leading the nation in murders, citizens have no way to protect themselves.

It seems like a shut and dry case – the law will be found unconstitutional and people will be free to own handguns again in DC. At least, that’s how I see it. It will be interesting to see how the court interprets this and exactly what they say in the ruling.

Sometimes I just have to come out and ask: Did anybody in our government pay attention in history class? The reason I ask is this article.

It talks about how Bush and Rice just signed off on a plan that would funnel money and arms to Fatah fighters so they can lead an uprising over Hamas in Gaza.

It worked out so well when we did the same thing in Afghanistan years ago, that I’m sure it’s going to be a splendid success this time too.