Solstice Coil
Saying Goodbye to MySpace
Folks, since MySpace is getting worse by the day, we've decided not to put much effort into this wretched site anymore. I simply don't have the time, the energy or the will to manage this pathetic excuse for a social network, and after they've completely ruined our page's design and the user interface, it's time to call it quits.
The page will still be around, we're not removing it (I've put in WAY too many hours into it to just do that), but we will not be visiting it ourselves that often, and I will no longer be monitoring our friend requests, messages, and comments since none of them come from real people anyway. I've set the preferences to auto-accept requests, and turned all e-mail notifications off. Hopefully that will have the desired effect, because in the past this type of actions produced results that were the exact opposite of what they were supposed to do.
So - if you want to find out more about us, we have this, a real website where you can catch up with everything that's going on with us. Also, you can follow us on Facebook and on Twitter if you're really hardcore fans.
Hopefully MySpace will receive it's well deserved funeral soon. In the meantime, don't waste your time adding us as friends because we will not longer be paying attention to that.
It’s Like They WANT Us to Leave
Although most normative people and pretty much everyone I know have long abandoned MySpace as a social networking platform, I am forced to stick around. Solstice Coil still receives friend requests every day and if I don’t log in to approve or deny request it gets piled up in no time.
Granted, most of these requests are by bands I don’t care about, rappers I don’t want to approve, strippers (that I always approve, of course) and scams of many persuasions, but every once in a while there’s someone there who genuinely wants to listen to our music and talk to us.
So I keep at it. I approve the friend requests I deem worthy and post a thank you comment with some information. And if I see a message or comment that’s not been pre-written, I will even reply with a non-pre-written message of my own.
Let’s get things straight, though: I HATE myspace. I long for the day Rupert Murdoch pulls the plug on this wretched site and finally release us from the cyber prison of faulty programming and tremendously bad taste. I’ve wasted hundreds if not thousands of hours on this cesspool of a site, only to see everybody I’d been in contact with on it leave, with me having no way to keep in touch with them since MySpace doesn’t display e-mail addresses or even the names of its users.
But until that glorious day – I keep at it. I squirm every time they present us with a new layout – always worse than the one before, always managing to fix one bug while creating ten others. But this recent change has lead me to one inevitable conclusion – they WANT us to leave. It’s basically a staring match – they want to shut down the site but they won’t do it until every last one of us leaves voluntarily.
What do the brilliant programmers of MySpace have in store for us this time? Let’s see now: there used to be an option to right click on links and open them in a new window/tab, so naturally, that’s out. Also, in the Requests Page, you can mark all the requests, only now there’s no “approve all” option anymore (or at least, they’ve hidden it well enough for me not to find it.)
But hey, there’s some good news too! When I placed the cursor on the new idiotic MySpace Logo (there’s right – it’s “My______” now – that’s surely going to bring back the stockholders) in the upper bar, a group of black tentacles shot out and started flapping about, while one of them was holding a heart-shaped lollipop. Yeah, that’s what the people need.
Apparently that’s what they’ve been working on: stupid animations that are meant to divert your attention from the fact their site sucks klingon dongs. I guess that’s actually good thinking. Much easier than just making a simple and intuitive user-friendly layout. It’s not like there’s another social network out there with a layout they can just copy…
Seriously, MySpace – just die already. It’s becoming embarrassing.
What's up with Bob?
(Warning: May contain spoilers)
It's reasonable for a covert international organization to have a hidden agenda, but lately it feels like The Company's agenda is hidden even from The Company itself. It seems like Volume Two of Heroes is all about ambiguity. Some characters are eternally good, and some are eternally evil, but most of them just want to save the world, only they're at a disagreement as to how exactly that should be done. Some think that in order to save the world, you need to kill every living soul on the face of the planet, which… makes sense, I guess. Some think that's a big no-no. Come to think of it, this is pretty similar to Volume One of Heroes.
I think it's clear to say that with Linderman gone, The Company is no longer definitely evil. It's seems pretty obvious to me that they actually do want to do some good, but they've dangled with the business of being vague for so long, they don't really know what good is anymore. They also no longer have any grasp of basic common sense.
The Company's desperate attempts to be as vague as they can be is evident in their choice of leader. A guy called Bob. Could you be any vaguer than that? You could, if you choose an Actor who specializes in undetectable roles, whose name is even more elusive than that of the Guy who Looks like Tim Robbins but isn't Actually Tim Robbins, to play the part of Bob. Stephen Tobolowsky is a good actor, but he has had the misfortune (or fortune? You'd be the judge) of having a face completely devoid of character. He can play high school principles, corporate executives, lawyers, sexual offenders, and nothing would ever stick to him. He's basically "just some guy".
Bob runs a solid operation of absentmindedness. The Company's ethics, strategy and actions are beyond any reasonable logic. This company has proven that it has no limitations or inhabitations; they have no problem with kidnapping people, tagging them like animals or killing anyone who seems to be in the way, whether they're completely insignificant or dear family members. But when they get their hands on the REAL bad guys, what do they do? Lock them up. Adam Monroe is a maniac who'll live forever unless we take his head off? Sure, let's put him in a minimum security cell. Better yet, let's put one of the most powerful individuals on the face of the earth in a cell right next to him, so he can help him escape! Sylar's killed dozens of people and he's becoming a powerful and uncontrollable menace? Sure, let's just inject him with the virus and "see what happens". Put him somewhere in Mexico, guarded by one woman whose superpower is being able to hide her cellulite. He'll never be able to WALK OUT OF THERE without his powers!
The writers of Heroes are really trying hard to keep up with the level of the last season, and that's admirable. But they have to understand that when Plan A fails, you should have a Plan B, not Plan A recycled. Making everything bigger just won't cut it. They're trying to use a worn out tactic of keeping us in the dark about the true intentions of certain characters, but instead of creating a mysterious atmosphere, all they manage to produce is inconsistencies. Bob can't be a compassionate philanthropist and then an abusive father. He also can't be exceptionally cunning, and occasionally be a complete moron. How is it that the Company has cameras installed practically everywhere, but not where Sylar is kept, so they have no idea that he's broken loose, and they don't even notice when Doctor Suresh makes phone calls to Bennett right under their noses?
It's possible, that this will all turn out to be part of one great plan. Well let me tell you, this is a very stupid plan. Any other company that works with this sort of business model would go bankrupt within a year, and most definitely won't last for 30 odd years. Did they really need Bennett to personally assassinate Nathan Petrelli? Is he really that good? Because I distinctively remember that he lost in a gun fight with Doctor Suresh, a guy who's never fired a gun before (but managed to slip him one right in the eye, mind you). I'm sure they have other assassins, better, younger, powered. Are they doing this out of spite? Is this any way to run a company? Honestly, Bob, grow up. They could have very welled release Bennett without rehiring him and just let him go back to his family. I'm sure that would be motivation enough for him to convince Claire not to pull the whistle! Now, basically what they did was intentionally hire a disgruntled employee. Way to keep up morale!
On a different note, I would like to point out that Peter Petrelli's goodness is only overshadowed by his utter stupidity. He's so fucking gullible, that he's not even trying to think about anything in a logical manner. He's decided that Adam is the only one who can help him bring Caitlin back, so there you have it. Then he runs into Hiro, a guy who can BEND TIME AND SPACE, and the thought never crosses his mind that hey, maybe this guy can help too! Maybe I should talk to him instead of trying to kill him! It's not like there's no time for that, because he… froze time. And then this brilliant Keanu Reeves successor figures, hey, here's a very destructive mysterious and uncontainable virus, maybe I should throw some nuclear power at it and see what happens! WOAH! What was that?
One last thing that bugs me about this show is all the coincidences. Sure, it was cute at first, but eventually the fact that Hiro and Nathan Petrelli are surprised to see each other time and time again just doesn't add up. I mean, you do run in the same social circles. The nature of the plot just doesn't fit modern time. They try to keep up by having Suresh say the word "Jpeg" on prime time television for the very first time in television history, but if this was real life, they wouldn't be running around the world completely unaware. They would probably all be part of the same group in Facebook. They would be able to locate each other on Google Earth instead of using the analogue Molly version. But hey, this show isn't about making sense, right?
