TurboFool (Neither, really)

So according to USA Today, high-level video game publisher Ubisoft has chosen the famous anti-science, pro-Measles, “mother warrior” Jenny McCarthy to front their new fitness game for the Wii, Your Shape.

The game’s a big deal for Ubisoft as it was hinted at back during E3 for coming with a camera accessory that the company is comparing (loosely) to Project Natal, Microsoft’s exciting new motion-tracking peripheral. Ubisoft‘s idea is that the camera can scan and map your body for the sake of fitness tests, and likely for more advanced tracking of your routine than the balance-based tests the Wii Balance board currently uses.

Jenny McCarthy with her son, as well as boyfriend Jim Carrey, at a "Green Our Vaccines" rally

Where Jenny comes into play appears to be both as a pitchwoman of sorts (likely appearing on the packaging and in commercials), as well as an in-game avatar who guides you through your routine. Because who’s a better source of advice on health and fitness than someone with incredibly inaccurate knowledge of biology, chemistry, neurology, psychology, and any other field that can affect a person’s health, despite having been corrected time and again by people with drastically better education than she has? She actively promotes the falsehood that vaccines are toxic and cause Autism (completely untrue in every possible way), was way too far into the Indigo Child absurdity until she realized her child was Autistic and [poorly] wiped all traces of the previous belief from the web, highly recommends injecting oneself with Botulinum Toxin (Botox) without a hint of irony, has indirectly led to over 200 deaths at last count, and over 47,000 illnesses through her spread of bullshit, and believes these deaths (and more) are a necessary loss in her war against a problem that doesn’t exist. Yes, THIS is the woman I want helping teach my family how to be healthy.

I think Ubisoft has failed to take this into account with their choice, and probably isn’t even aware of this controversy. They see her as a popular and attractive woman who, thanks to Oprah, is in the limelight quite frequently, and they see paydirt. But maybe, just maybe (probably not, but still), if we all make the effort to make them aware of the hypocrisy of this decision, they’ll reconsider. It can’t hurt, right?

So how do we do it? Well, we head on over to Ubisoft‘s corporate site, click on the Contact Us link (I’d link to it, but it appears to be session-specific), and speak our minds. Now, let’s do so rationally and calmly, treating them with respect. This is a major company full of likely extremely intelligent people, many of whom are probably full of integrity. We stand the best chance of getting through to them by appealing to them on a rational level instead of just displaying the outright anger this woman fills us with. Link to fantastic sites like Jenny McCarthy Body Count and Stop Jenny as resources, and pick out articles from the many wonderful sites on the body count links page as evidence, or find your own. Point is, give them the sound reasons why this choice not only reflects poorly on them, but helps further promote the incredibly wrong idea that Jenny McCarthy is an authority on health. Oprah’s support has already done enough harm, but now a major video game directly connecting this woman to fitness will only serve to further convince families that this is a woman they can trust to keep their family safe, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Now I may get blasted in the comments for this (heck, I may actually GET COMMENTS), and I’m prepared for that. I will not censor them (minus the usual rules about personal threats and such), but I may also try to refrain from responding for the good of my blood pressure. Odds are the haters will make my case for me based on how they write on most other blogs that dare suggest science knows better than mommy instinct.

One note: I purposefully avoided making a petition for this. They don’t work, and they’re too easily ignored. Besides, they let people be lazy by simply copying a pre-written form comment to the company which diminishes the impact. If you care, please write your own thoughts on the subject. The more intelligent people they see putting in the effort, the more it’ll mean.

Good luck, and thanks in advance for the help.

I did some pretty cool things during my time as an actor, and it’s hard not to reminisce. Life has forced me to shift directions in recent years, but that doesn’t stop me from looking back at what I did and using a combination of nostalgia and confirmation bias to exclusively remember how awesome it was. The extremely long hours, the stressful interviews, the egotistical celebrities, the asshole directors (speaking ONLY of the assholes and not the truly awesome ones), the honeywagons, the unpleasant and sometimes dangerous locations, the best parts of the scenes being edited out, the bad craft service (again, not speaking of the times it kicked ass [Orion, your sandwiches were legendary]), Southwest airlines, being sick on location, roller skating while strapped to your “conjoined twin,” and all the other awful and unpleasant memories have been completely driven from my mind in favor of the good times.

So it was this extremely jaded trip down memory lane that got me searching for some of the more unique side-steps during my career: My roles in music videos.

As you’re all surely aware, I’m highly-regarded for my musical and dancing skills, having enjoyed brief superstardom in Kyrgyzstan in the early ‘90s until… well, I’m sure you all remember the dreadful events of April, 1994 enough to guess what happened next. However, as my musical talents were never as appreciated in the states, or Europe, Australia, the rest of Asia, or, well, anywhere else outside my own head, I had to settle for appearing in several music videos for lesser-known groups such as The Devlins, Live, and The Rolling Stones (I know, I was scratching my head when they told me the names of the bands, too). So, in the spirit of sharing and shameless self-promotion, I now present you my music video collection:

This one was pretty fun to film. It was done in an incredibly old house that was in such bad shape you could see through the gaps in the boards that made up the floors and walls. The filming style and characters were extremely creative, and the experience was great. It was a very long day, and at one point it became clear to the production that they weren’t going to get to me any time soon. Budgets on music videos are relatively tight, and overtime for kids is illegal, so they picked another option that also wasn’t technically kosher and offered to let me work a split day. They sent me home for half the day, paying for whatever I wanted to do in that time period (I rented Donkey Kong Country for the SNES on their expense), and then I came back much later only to sit in a very cold trailer until they finally got around to working with me.

In case you’re unclear, I’m the little boy standing at the head of his dying mother (first appearing at 1:14). One interesting note was that I swear to this day they never filmed me removing the coins from her eyes. I remember placing them ON her eyes, but I don’t remember ever being directed to remove them. My motions look natural enough that I’m unconvinced they reversed the footage, but I’m just not sure. I suppose it’s possible they were still rolling when I removed the coins to do a retake, but I don’t think I would have stayed in-character in doing so. A personal mystery.

I did get to meet the band over lunch, although I wasn’t specifically a fan at the time, so it wasn’t THAT big a deal. I did receive, over time, three separate copies of the album (two of which had the red jewel-case side), and at least one of them was signed by the band. I listened to the album like crazy after that and it quickly became a favorite. It’s only in recent years that I’ve learned they’re considered Christian Rock, at least in some circles, and their lyrics began to fall into place for me with that in mind. Regardless, I still recognize that they write some damn good music, and our clashing beliefs don’t prevent me from enjoying it. Two more videos after the break…

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This is one of my favorite videos on Funny or Die. It’s simple, quick, and right to the point. Enjoy.

Today’s the beginning of my real blog. I’ve had blogs spread out all over the ‘net in some form or another, but they’ve all been attached to specific sites. This is my first real blog dedicated to me.

I’ve tried to pull this off before, but my heart was never in it. This time I’m hoping to do better. Right now, to be perfectly honest, my blog has no real focus. It’s going to be all over the map, because that’s me. My interests are pretty varied, and this blog will reflect that.

I think most of my content is going to be made up primarily of things I locate via StumbleUpon. My StumbleUpon blog will continue to contain the majority of these items, and I’m going to try to keep my X-rated content (photos and videos; opinions on matters of sex are going to be common here) there so this blog stays mostly safe for work. For that reason I do highly recommend checking out that blog, as there’s a lot of fun stuff there. But the most interesting and most worthy stuff will end up here, as well as my rants on the subjects that interest me most.

In the off chance that anybody actually comes to this blog and returns in the near future, I’ll warn you that the appearance of this blog is likely to change frequently for a while until I settle on something I like. And even then, that’ll likely be temporary until I’m comfortable enough with my editing skills to design my own layout.

So that’s it. Onward and upward. Enjoy.