"netbanging"

Anyone hear about this? Apparently, gangs are online now.

I don't have a link, but suffice it to say if you Google the word you'll find comments from people on blogs and in message boards, either for or against netbanging.

I suppose this should disgust me, but I saw it coming a long time ago. I even had an idea for a screenplay about a straight-A minority student who gets a scholarship to college, only to end up starting a gang on campus. It was supposed to play like a comedy-- Animal House meets Boyz N Da Hood.

This could be the end of cyberspace as we know it-- right now, anyone can stake a claim, like prospectors during the Gold Rush. But now that gangs are establishing virtual turfs, you can expect to see some new legislation concerning intellectual property rights on the Web and other small laws that will eventually make cyberspace akin to real estate.

Netbanging-- oh my, how does this shit get started? What kind of nerd wanted to be in a gang so badly that he showed the thugs in his neighborhood how to do drive-by site flames and hack into enemy servers?

It will give new meaning to the word 'tag', that's for sure. Online G's won't know if they're writing HTML code or writing their name.

Life is getting more absurd by the day. What else can one say when Three 6 Mafia wins an Oscar-- whether you like rap or not, Three 6 Mafia is somethin' else. I'm sure most people see it as a sign of the apocalypse, but if you ask me the Oscars is the one party where things REALLY need to get crunk.

I used to hate Three 6, as well as Project Pat and Petey Pablo and Lil Jon and all those Southern crunksters. My homie Down Low used to play this stuff for me and I developed a taste for it.

It was one thing to see the song nominated and performed on the show, but when it actually won I almost shit my Pampers.

And to anyone who feels that this was some sort of travesty, I ask you this: if South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut had won an Oscar the year "Blame Canada" was nominated, would THAT have been just as bad? Or would it have been okay because Trey Parker and Matt Stone are white?

btw: I thought Jon Stewart was fucking hilarious as the host. And I wasn't surprised that Crash won for Best Picture. It was a good movie. Not great, not average... Good. Competent. Nice.

Truthful? Not very. Realistic? No, but then again we're talking about movies. Entertaining? Yes. Well made? Indeed. Praiseworthy? I don't know.

Reese Witherspoon winning for Walk The Line was cool. I saw the movie over the weekend and was spellbound by her performance. Joaquin Phoenix was better than I expected-- I'm a big Johnny Cash fan, and I am very critical when it comes to actors playing musicians. I didn't think Joaquin had it in him, but he convinced me that he did.

Too bad he had to go up against Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who deserved that Oscar 100%. Who knows if Hoffman would have ever received an nomination for a Lead Role again? This award ensures that one of America's greatest character actors can now find work on a scale proportionate to his talent. Even though he didn't win, at least Joaquin doesn't have a problem finding movies where he can play the lead-- he's young, good-looking, and talented. Hoffman is sort-of young, mediocre-looking, and talented: possessing an Oscar now puts him in the running with Tom Hanks and Kevin Spacey.

All the hype over Brokeback Mountain may have killed its prospects. I haven't seen it, but I will someday, and I'm sure it is excellent-- but Crash was the movie that exemplified this year's choices. The movies nominated this year were "important" (whether they actually are or not remains debatable) and stirred up conversations that provoked people to think.

Granted, Crash mainly stirred up discussion over whether the movie actually deserved such "important" status, but at least it was controversial, right?

Like I said, life is getting more absurd by the day. What's next? I can't possibly imagine...